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BIG RAMY EXPLODES ON TO THE SCENE
GROW WITH VOLUME TRAININGTRAININGBRITAIN’S
BEST MAG FOR
GETTING BIG
BRITISH CHAMPIONSHIPS
SPECIALTRAINING
BIG
TRAINING TIPS FROM THE PROSKAI GREENE
SHAWN RHODEN
FLEX LEWIS
EXPLODES ON TO THE SCENEEXPLODES ON TO THE SCENEEXPLODES ON TO THE SCENEEXPLODES ON TO THE SCENE
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9 770955 121136
1 1
NOVEMBER 2013 £4.20www.flexonline.co.uk
BR
ITIS
H E
DIT
ION
FOLLOW HIS PROGRAMME FOR SIZELACTOSECARBCOMPROMISEZERO
FOR MORE INFORMATION: [email protected] - 01638662589
WHEY ISOLATEPROTEINI00%
NOVEMBER 2013
cover photograph by PAVEL YTHJALL
VOLUME 31 NUMBER 8
TRAINING 30 BACK AND FORTH
WITH THE GIFT Phil Heath reveals his back-
burning techniques. ByGregMerritt
42 LEWIS LASHES LEGS
Flex Lewis demolishes legs, all without the help of one very revered exercise in the bodybuilding canon.
ByMichaelBerg
62 VOLUME TRAINING: OLD METHOD, NEW ANGLE
Blow it up with this modern-day twist on a timeless classic.
ByDavidSandler
86 H.U.G.E.®: ISO-TENSION
How flexing between sets can enhance muscle growth.
ByGregMerritt
FEATURES 52 GENERATION IRON The conclusion of our behind-
the-scenes look at the bodybuilding docudrama.
ByDaveLee
78 SHATTERING THE COMPETITION
Mamdouh “Big Ramy” Elssbiay exploded into the IFBB Pro League. Who is he, and where did he come from?
ByRobbieDurand
100 BRITISH CHAMPIONSHIPS QUIZ
Test your knowledge of the British Championships with this brain workout.
ByJohnPlummer
108 AGE OF INTENSITY The training philosophies that
set Dorian Yates apart. ByJulianSchmidt
42
100
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10 Editorial Bodybuilding has changed forever. 12 Arnold’s Page You should know squat! 14 It’s Only My Opinion Cables, or barbells and
dumbbells? 16 Hard Times Olympia weekend million-dollar
milestone; and more! 26 Home Scene News and gossip from the UK. 72 Get Big Column How I started right but then
went wrong. 92 From the Trenches Expert advice for hardgainers. 118 Gym Bag Our usual mix, including training
tips, research, and more. 124 Advanced Nutrition The latest food and supplements
news.
128 Big Ass Mass Stay anabolic.
130 Lift Strong The 1-6 Principle.
132 Advanced Bodybuilding Dopamine: a dieter’s secret
weapon. 134 Hardcore Nutrition The calorie fallacy. 136 Ask the Guru Neil Hill answers your questions. 138 Only the Strong Building your lower back
strength. 156 Looking Back A look back at the career of the
legendary Albert Beckles. 164 ET Column Ex pro British bodybuilder
Ernie Taylor draws on his vast experience to answer your questions .
172 Under the Microscope We put Muscletech Nano Vapor
under the microscope. 176 The Shot Phil Heath
departments
weider athletes
140 Phil Heath 142 Mamdouh Elssbiay 144 Flex Lewis 146 Shawn Rhoden 147 Roelly Winklaar 148 Fouad Abiad 150 Michael Liberatore 152 Erik Fankhouser 153 Ben Pakulski 154 Kai Greene
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Weider PUBLiCATiONS, LLC A SUBSidiAry Of AmeriCAN mediA, iNC.Chairman, President & Chief exeCutive OffiCer David Pecker
exeCutive viCe President, Chief marketing OffiCer Kevin Hyson
exeCutive viCe President, COnsumer marketing David W. Leckey
exeCutive viCe President, Chief finanCial OffiCer, treasurer Chris Polimeni
President, CeO, distributiOn serviCes, inC. John D. Swider
exeCutive viCe President, Chief digital OffiCer Joseph M. Bilman
exeCutive viCe President, digital media OPeratiOns,Chief infOrmatiOn OffiCer David Thompson
seniOr viCe President, OPeratiOns Rob M. O’Neill
general manager, ami internatiOnal & syndiCatiOn Lawrence A. Bornstein
Editorial articles relating to food supplementation and sports nutrition reproduced in this issue of FLEX are for information purposes only and are not intended to solicit or otherwise promote any commercialised product containing the mentioned supplements. FLEX is distributed on an international basis. To the extent permitted by law, Weider Publications LLC and its affiliates: Weider Publishing Ltd, Weider Publishing Italia Srl and Mediafit SARL,
do not accept liability for the effects of reported supplements or products, legal or illegal or any loss, injury or damage caused by their use. It is the respon-sibility of the individual to abide by the laws and dosage allowances specific to their country of residence. Always consult a doctor before commencing supplementation or changing dosages. Some supplements may not work effectively outside specific dosage ranges and may potentially cause harm if
taken in excess. Not all supplements, combinations of supplements, or dose ranges of supplements may be suitable, safe or effective for everybody.
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Every care is taken to assure the accuracy of the information in FLEX, but no responsibility can be accepted for the consequences of actions based on the advice contained herein. Weider Publishing Ltd makes every effort to ensure that the advertising contained in FLEX is derived from respectable
sources. It does not, however, assume responsibility for the advertisements, nor any claims and representations made therein, nor the quality or delivery of the products/services themselves.
UK ediTiON US ediTiON
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ediTOriAL
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PriNT SUBSCriPTiONS
diGiTAL SUBSCriPTiONS
managing direCtOr Martin Cheifetz editOrial direCtOr John Plummer editOr Chris Lund marketing/Web manager Andrew Berrie PrOduCtiOn manager Suzanne Turmel Print/PrOduCtiOn CO-OrdinatOr Sarah Patterson Creative team Neil Molyneaux, Steve Pickles, Leigh ShrimptonPrOduCtiOn team John Braddick, Alice Cockerham, Sarah Warner sCienCe editOr Dr Daniel Reardonsub editOrs gillian ingles, Kathy Tweddlestaff Writer Matt TurnerOnline COntent PrOduCer Joanna greenregulatOry COnsultant Mark gilbert advertising CO-OrdinatOr Martin Denton advertising assistant Jonathan Boothdigital/advertising assistant Justin Frickletonmarketing assistant Charlotte Barnes it and COmmuniCatiOns manager Jim Sore finanCial COntrOller Kevin Howland administratiOn manager Sandra Opacic CirCulatiOn direCtOr Patrick Napier
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Chairman & Chief exeCutive OffiCer David Pecker
fOunder & Chairman emeritus Joe Weider (1920-2013)
President Of the ifbb PrOfessiOnal league Jim Manion
exeCutive editOr Arnold Schwarzenegger
editOr-in-Chief Robbie Durand
managing editOr Brian good
West COast editOr Dave ian Lee
Chief mediCal adviser Carlon Colker
eurOPean advertising manager Samantha Lund e-mail: [email protected] tO advertise Tel: 01423 550848
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Copyright © (2013) Weider Publications, LLC. Published under license from Weider Publications, LLC. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. ‘FLEX’ is a trademark of Weider Publications, LLC. and may not be used or reproduced without the permission of Weider Publications, LLC.
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With this magazine due out two days before the British Champion-ships, thoughts are already
turning to the 2014 series of qualifiers, which get underway at the Stars of Tomorrow show at the Beck Theatre in Hayes, west London, on November 3rd.
It’s been a wonderful year with more contests than ever, more competitors than ever and frequent full houses. Some promoters are looking for bigger venues. Others, who lived through the lean years that lasted from about 1990 to 2005, are wary of upsizing to expensive new buildings in case the sport collapses like it did 25 years ago.
But that won’t happen. Bodybuilding has fundamentally changed. Back then it was all about freaky muscle. Now it’s about mainstream muscle as well, as displayed on this page by Ryan Terry.
Classic bodybuilding, men’s physique, bodyfitness and bikini fitness are game changers. They’ve transformed the physiques on stage, the kind of people who want to compete and the atmosphere at shows.
We’re now seeing more competitors from high street health clubs, such as Virgin Active, Bannatyne and Fitness First instead of just the old spit-and-sawdust gyms we know and love. The number of female athletes has increased dramatically. The growth in spin-off businesses, such as contest tanning, bikini manufacturing and posing workshops is evidence of a sport in rude health.
BY JOHN PLUMMER EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
BODYBUILDING HAS CHANGED FOREVER
Little has been lost but much has been gained. All the old body building categories still exist but the new ones give practically anyone the chance to get on stage if they’re up for the challenge of training to be in the best shape of their lives. In such body-conscious times, that’s only going to appeal to more people.
If the United Kingdom Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation continues to seize the opportunity, and the introduc-tion of a new contest next summer suggests it is (see Home Scene), this might just be the beginning.
Bodybuilding has changed, mainly for the better. We will be changing too by including more coverage of these newer classes in 2013 as we strive to bring you Britain’s best bodies in all their forms.
In the meantime, get in the British Championships spirit by trying our quiz this month and look for our coverage of the big event, and many of the qualifiers, at flexonline.co.uk. FLEX
Want a physique like Ryan Terry’s?
watcH it NOw
Learn how he does it with his 12-week Cover Model Conditioning programme at www.myvideopt.com
10 FLEX
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Ask 100 bodybuilders which exercise they’d do if they could only do one, and 99 would
tell you the squat—and the other one probably has chronic knee issues. There’s little doubt that the squat is the king of all exercises, because it adds mass to your thighs and glutes, as well as all over your body via a systemic response to this most difficult of exercises.
When I was competing, I would squat twice per week and go to more than 400 pounds for reps. I would often do my squats barefoot to grip the floor better with my toes, and my training partners Franco Columbu, Ken Waller, and Dave Draper wouldn’t count a rep until my butt touched the back of my ankles. It was gruelling and in the end, quite frankly, I hated the exercise, but I knew that it was essential if I wanted to be the best bodybuilder on the planet.
If you want to be the best bodybuilder you can be, and you don’t suffer from chronic knee or hip issues, then you should make the squat your best friend—whether you like it or not. Below, I’ve compiled some tips to keep in mind the next time you climb under a bar.
■ Body alignment is key Ideally, your back should be as straight as possible, so that your rear end and the bar are almost in line with each other. Concentrating on keeping your chest out will help you keep your back flat. I also recommend incorporating front squats into your routine to focus in on the quads more than the glutes.
■ Tailor your stance to your goals Whether your feet should be spaced wide or closed—a common squatting debate—depends on which area of the quads you want to focus on. A wider
stance hits the inside of the thighs more, whereas a narrower stance tends to target the outer quads.
■ Go down to just below parallel To develop strength throughout the entire range of motion, it’s important for your thighs to go just beyond parallel to the floor at the bottom of each rep. This is especially important for beginners who are establishing a training base. After you’ve become experienced, it’s OK occasionally to include half squats in your training to allow you to use heavier weight, which adds mass.
■ Drop the sets and reps for more mass If size is your goal, as it usually is with squats, you must train according to basic power principles: do fewer sets and reps with as heavy a weight you can handle, and take longer rest periods. That means three or four sets, four to eight reps, and around three minutes of rest between sets. On occasion, include higher-rep sets (10–15) to add variety.
■ Switch to Smith If your lower back and/or knees bother you during barbell squatting, use a Smith machine instead. That’s what I did
later in my career and it took a lot of stress off of those vulnerable areas. Hack squats are another alternative that I found effectively target the outer thigh muscles.
■ Do supersets and compound sets In 1971, when I wanted to add more definition and separation—not to mention sheer size—to my thighs, I got great results by doing compound sets of leg extensions followed by squats, as well as supersets of front squats and lying leg curls (for hamstrings). The burn was unbearable, but it worked! FLEX
YOU SHOULD KNOW SQUAT
BY ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Arnold Schwarzenegger shows Franco Columbu and Ken Waller that he does, indeed, know squat.
BY ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, EXECUTIVE EDITOR
12 FLEX
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TBY chris lund photos BY chris lund
Many years ago I read an article written by Ivan Dunbar who was a top NABBA official from Ireland. Ivan would always
try his best to bring over the current, hottest physique sensations in the world so that his fellow countrymen could see them up close for themselves. He did this for many years and sometimes he would write about the experience in Health & Strength magazine. On this particular occasion he had pulled off a real winner. He had brought over Larry Scott, the first man to win the Mr Olympia. (Larry won it twice in 1965 and 1966 and then retired from bodybuilding.)
During the early part of the 1960s, Larry Scott was the undisputed king of bodybuilders and you were dazzled and truly inspired by the fantastic photographs and training articles about him in Joe Weider’s Muscle Builder, the forerunner to FLEX. Larry trained at Vince Gironda’s gym in California using all kinds of specialised training equipment that we had never seen before. He even used a special biceps bench which was nicknamed after him, because he used it exclusively to build those amazing, fully rounded biceps (which we had also never seen before). This bench was called the Scott bench at first, but over the years it became known as the preacher bench.
Ivan wrote that he was surprised that on first sight, while fully dressed, Larry appeared smaller than he had anticipated. But he wasn’t quite prepared for his next surprise. When he proudly showed Larry his gym, the two-time Mr Olympia from California just stared in unimpressed silence. Eventually he asked, “But where are all the pulleys, and cables? I train using at least 12 different cable machines!” “Ah,” replied Ivan, “we are just a simple hardcore gym. Maybe a spot of hard work on the basic stuff will do you good!” Mr Scott was not amused, and Ivan wrote that he would never
CABLES OR BARBELLS & DUMBELLS?
forget that look of disappointment on the face of the latest, greatest bodybuilder in the world.
To Larry Scott’s credit, Ivan Dunbar concluded his article by saying that he was absolutely astounded when Scott posed that night on stage. “Larry Scott,” he wrote, “was the best we had ever seen!”
While it’s perfectly true that Larry Scott did use many different types of cable machines, it’s also true that he trained more intensely than any other bodybuilding champion during his era apart from Sergio Oliva, who used lots of heavy basic moves.
The cable movements, as well as the specialised training apparatus such as the Smith machine, wide-grip dipping bar and hack squat machine, were the influence of the infamous Vince Gironda, who would not allow regular squats to be done in his gym. In his opinion, “squats widen the hips, and if I see anyone in the gym doing them, I will kick them out!”
During the period that Larry Scott reigned as the greatest bodybuilder in the world, specialised training exercises began to evolve and gain popularity. Why kill yourself with regular squats, when you could have fun on the hack squat, leg press and thigh extension machines? Why do regular barbell curls when you could do cable curls and preacher curls? [Editor’s note: Larry Scott’s biceps routine consisted of dumbbell preacher curls supersetted with barbell preacher curls, nonstop, six sets of six reps. He then finished off with six sets of reverse-grip preacher curls using an EZ curl bar. Larry’s training was not exactly heavy duty, but he did lots of compound sets and trisets until he couldn’t do another rep. He would then do half reps and burns to true muscular failure.]
Why do demanding sets of parallel dips and lying EZ triceps extensions when you could do pressdowns, one-arm pushdowns and leaning-
forward pulley triceps extensions (Scott’s favourite triceps exercise)?
Why do heavy bentover rows and chins when you’ve got all those lat machines? Why bother with bench presses and dips when you could do Gironda-inspired, lightweight wide-grip bench presses to the neck as well as wide-grip parallel dips with your elbows kept out to the sides?
Heavy military presses and dumbbell presses were replaced with the Smith machine press, cable lateral raises and a unique two-dumbbell shoulder press that Larry Scott also became famous for. Instead of pushing the dumbbells straight up from your shoulders, you pushed them inwards until they were a few inches from the top of your head. Your arms remained bent throughout the entire movement, which meant that you eliminated the weaker triceps involvement. In other words, you failed because your deltoids gave out, not because your triceps did. This exercise became known as the Scott dumbbell press and later the Arnold dumbbell press.
So we dropped the heavy squats and replaced them with the hack machine and leg extension. We cut out the heavy bench presses and incline dumbbell presses, and did wide-grip bench press to the neck and cable crossovers. We dropped regular military presses and dumbbell presses and replaced them with the Scott dumbbell press and one-arm cable side laterals. We didn’t do regular parallel dips and lying triceps extensions any more. Instead we did every form of cable triceps exercise we could think of. Heavy pyramid-style barbell and dumbbell curls were replaced by preacher curls and cable curls. Finally we even dumped bentover barbell rows and chins and replaced them with pulldowns and low lat pulley work.
The result was not as we expected. Muscles began to shrink on a weekly basis. And strength? That went down the pan as well. When we eventually went back to basic barbell and dumbbell exercises, we ached for a week but with time, our strength and muscular size came back!
See you next month,and keep training.
Chris Lund FlEX
14 FLEX
TONEY FREEMAN
15FLEX
16 FLEX
Joe Weider’s Olympia Fitness and Performance Weekend has reached a milestone—
correction, a million-dollar milestone. Yes, bodybuilding’s biggest weekend has hit the $1 million mark, making Olympia Weekend’s total prize money figure the richest in the industry—by a country mile! Check out the increases in total prize
Mr. Olympia: $675,000
212 Showdown: $65,000
Ms. Olympia: $60,000
Fitness Olympia: $60,000
Figure Olympia: $60,000
Bikini Olympia: $40,000
Men’s Physique
Showdown: $20,000
Women’s Physique
Showdown: $20,000
Total: $1 million
TOTAL PRIZE MONEY
BREAKDOWN
money per division: Mr. Olympia (open men) has jumped to $675,000; the Olympia 212 Showdown has grown to $65,000; and the inaugural Olympia Men’s and Women’s Physique Showdowns kick in $20,000 apiece. Those figures combined with the other divisions add up to $1 million in total prize money.
For years, the goal was to reach $1 million by the 50th anniversary of Olympia
Weekend, which would’ve been in 2014. But thanks to the hard work and combined efforts of American Media Inc. and its CEO and chairman David J. Pecker, the
IFBB Profes-sional League
and its president
Jim Manion, Joe and Ben
Weider’s lifelong dream has become reality—
ahead of schedule. And let’s not forget the folks who really made this possible: the fans.
“Without the fans none of this would’ve happened,” Manion said. “Whether you’re a fan who attends year after year, a fan who can make a special trip only once in a while, or a first-time fan, it’s because of your support of the event and the sport, that Olympia Weekend has been getting bigger every year, and I know that with all the exciting things happening in the industry, it will continue growing in the coming years. The sky’s the limit.”
Big NEWs, gOssIP, ANd MORE
by Dave Lee
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18 FLEX
Photograph by ISAAC HINDS
HARDBODYCONFIDENTIAL
Haley DavisNPC bikini competitor
Photograph by ISAAC HINDSPhotograph by ISAAC HINDSPhotograph by
HaleyDavisNickname: The front desk guy at my gym calls me Guns.Favourite superhero: Captain America—good looking, muscles, nice guy, a romantic lover, but he can still kick some ass!Favourite female athlete: Bikini Olympia champ Nathalia MeloMost annoying word or saying: Beast modeCoolest invention ever: It’s a close tie between the ShamWow and the Shake WeightNumber of tattoos: One…that you can see!Denim shorts: For the ladies ONLYHidden talents: I can do the wave with my tongue.
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RONNY ROCKEL 2014 COMEBACK
For 10 years Ronny Rockel has been one of the world’s top professional bodybuilders. He planned to have a break in 2013 but got talked into
competing early in the year, which proved to be a big mistake with so much going on in his life.
In June he opened his Rock Shop in Ulm, Germany. He was due to become a father in late October and he has been learning to adjust to life with diabetes.
But he isn’t ready to retire. Rockel has been
busy bulking up with the intention of getting back on stage next year.
The German, who was Mr Europe in 2011, is one of the best bodybuilders of recent years so it will be great to see him competing again.
20 FLEX
RÜhl RetuRns ...as an MC
Over the course of his IFBB pro career, which included 32 contests and first place at the 2002 Night of Champions, Markus Rühl evolved into the
epitome of gigantic muscle mass. Now retired, Rühl has found a new outlet for his energy as a contest MC.
“To view the sport from a different perspective has been a lot of fun,” he told FLEX. “I hosted the EVLS Prague Pro and really enjoyed being the man behind the mic at FIBO along with Dennis James. All MC job offers are welcome!”
He still looks pretty huge in his suit so how is his training going? “It’s been going well,” he says. “I’ve been training five times a week but there will definitely be no comeback.”
21FLEX
Your best body part? Hamstrings and glutes.
Cheesiest pickup line? “Hi, you must be tired ’cause you’ve been running through my mind.”
Are you a girly-girl or one of the guys?I'm definitely one of the guys. I’m usually a girly-girl when I’m competing because I get all dolled up, but I generally wear sweats, a T-shirt, and a cap. I told myself, “For 2013, I'll be more of a girly-girl.”
Three things you can’t live without? My family, gym hat, and gym music
Most hardcore song on your playlist?Lil Wayne’s “Days and Days”, featuring 2 Chainz
Who inspires you? My partner-in-crime, Marco (Rivera, IFBB pro bodybuilder). I started competing because of him.
What’s your favourite thing about the fitness industry? All the people you get to meet. When they come up to you and say, “You’re my biggest inspiration,” that means a lot to me.
—nicole adamo
Yeshaira robles
WEIDER fox
Age 33 HeigHT 5'2" WeigHT 112 lbs
Photograph by ISAAC HINDS
22 FLEX
Your best body part? Hamstrings and glutes.
Cheesiest pickup line?
Are you a girly-girl or
I get all dolled up, but I generally wear sweats, a T-shirt, and a cap. I told myself, “For 2013, I'll be
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BSNONLINE.NET
Pro bodybuilding will return to Britain next year after a one-year absence.
Trade show Bodypower will host an IFBB-sanctioned contest in Birmingham on May 16th and 17th. There will be 212 lb, figure and wheelchair classes but not an open men’s category. Prejudging will be staged at the expo on Friday but visitors will have to pay for tickets to see the finals on the Saturday.
Shawn Rhoden, Flex Lewis and Michelle Brannan were the winners when the pros last jousted in Britain in 2012 so it’s great to see a revival.
Britain has a strong line-up of 212-ers so there is a good chance of more home-grown success. Besides Lewis, guys like James Llewellin, Lee Powell and Anth Bailes could feature.
The figure show could attract top Brits Lynsey Beattie and Louise Kayim (formerly Rogers) and the wheelchair category–the first
BODYPOWER PRO
ever to be staged in the UK–should see Dan Smith among the contenders.
“Bodybuilding has always been big in the UK,” said IFBB Professional League president Jim Manion. “There has been a long history of great champions competing in England and next year the IFBB Pro League is proud to keep that tradition alive with the BodyPower Pro.”
BodyPower chief executive Nick Orton added: “The introduction of a pro show into the expo programme is fantastic news for our visitors.”
Flex Lewis
Michelle Brannan
Shawn Rhoden
24 FLEX
big news, gossip and more
BY JOHN PLUMMER
2013 has been an up and down year for 212 lbs star Shaun Joseph- Tavernier, the man widely regarded
as Britain’s most exciting talent.Joseph-Tavernier, who was named Rookie
of the Year by FLEX after winning the 2011 Toronto Supershow and placing fifth at the Olympia, got married to Kelly in July and was eyeing a return to the pro scene next year. But his comeback plans were derailed in August when he suffered a recurrence of an abductor injury.
Joseph-Tavernier first tore his abductor just before the Olympia two years ago and couldn’t train legs for the final eight weeks leading into the show. It continued to bug him and tore again in the summer. He now expects to be out of action for several months and will miss the BodyPower Pro in May.
It seems that Joseph-Tavernier, like fellow Brit Zack Khan, is going to have to do things the hard way by fighting back from injuries but he’s far from downcast.
“I’ve just got married to my best friend and most beautiful wife and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been,” he told FLEX. “I’m doing different things and enjoying life. When it’s time for me to be back on stage I’m sure I will be.”
SHAUNSETBACK
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An exciting new competition focusing primarily on men’s physique and bikini fitness has
been added to the 2014 calendar. The IFBB Academy UK Summer Invitational
will offer winners the opportunity to represent the UK abroad at the Arnold Classic. Organised jointly by Sean O’Reilly, UKBFF education manager, and Bill Tierney, UKBFF president, the contest will be held at Brunel University in Uxbridge, West London on July 20th.
There will be two height classes for men’s physique and bikini fitness but in a UK first, both categories will also have over-35 classes. There will still be three men’s bodybuilding weight divisions but the emphasis on the less extreme
ClassesTeenage 16–19BeginnersClassicBodyfitnessBikini under 163 cmBikini over 163 cmBikini over 35 yearsMen’s physique under 178 cmMen’s physique over 178 cmMen’s physique over 35 yearsMen’s bodybuilding under 80 kgMen’s bodybuilding under 90 kgMen’s bodybuilding over 90 kg
NEW CONTESTclasses reflects their growing popularity.
Sean is confident of attracting more than 100 competitors. Panther’s Gym in Uxbridge, which he and wife Helen own, has become a hotbed of talent for bikini, bodyfitness, men’s physique and classic bodybuilding competitors so there won’t be any shortage of interest. Classic star Quiam Monzeer and bodyfitness champ Estzer Pati are among those who train there. Sean is also negotiat-ing for strongmen and powerlifting events to take place alongside the bodybuilding.
With so much happening, this event is likely to become the highlight of the summer muscle scene, which until recently was a quiet time for the sport.
Estzer Pati
Quiam Monzeer
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27FLEX
Did you know there are hundreds of photos from this year’s UKBFF competitions at flexonline.co.uk?
FLEX started providing free online coverage this year so you can catch up with all the action from the big events, whether it’s the super-heavyweights, bikini fitness or men’s physique.
We attend most UKBFF qualifiers and usually post a report, results and galleries the
Fancy becoming a judge? The UKBFF is seeking new
ones and even plans to pay them for the first time.
Judges have traditionally offered their services on a
voluntary basis, although their travel expenses are paid. But the ever-expanding schedule
means there is a desperate need for new officials.
“We are asking a lot of people to sit there all day and that’s why
we want to pay them,” says UKBFF president Bill Tierney. “It won’t be a fantastic wage but we will pay something.”
Some countries have more than 200 judges to choose from but
the UK depends on just a couple of dozen to cover shows
from Portsmouth to Paisley.Anyone interested in having a go
will need to pass an interview then be a test judge for three
shows, during which they need to judge to within 70 per cent
accuracy of the panel.For more details contact the
UKBFF on 0151 9314090 or email
VISIT FLEXONLINE.CO.UK FOR CONTEST COVERAGE
WANTED:JUDGES
following morning. If you follow the UK FLEX Facebook page, we also post some results and pictures live from the shows.
Svajunas Tamulevicius, the phenomenal beginner who won the Kent Classic, and the bodyfitness top three at the East of England Championships are amongst the many photos you can see on the site, which is searchable via keywords. FLEX
(from left) Kinga Kubicka, Serene Husseini and Emma Williams
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28 FLEX
BACK AND FORTH WITH
THEGIFT
PHIL HEATHREvEals his back-buRning
tEchniquEs
GIFTPHIL HEATHREvEals his back-bu
tEchniquchniqu
GIFTPHIL HEATH
als his back-buchniquchniqu
GIFTPHIL HEATH
als his back-buchniquchniqu
by GreG Merrittphotographs by Pavel YthJall
BACK AND FORTH WITH
THETHETHETHETHEGIFTGIFTGIFTGIFT
PHIL HEATHals his back-buRning
chniquchniquEs
BACK AND FORTH WITHBACK AND FORTH WITH
THETHETHETHETHETHETHEGIFTGIFT
PHIL HEATHals his back-bu
chniquchniqu
BACK AND FORTH WITH
THETHETHETHEGIFTGIFT
PHIL HEATHals his back-bu
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BACK AND FORTH WITH
THETHETHE
30 FLEX
000FLEX
32 FLEX
Phil Heath took the bodybuilding world by storm in 2005 and 2006. Yet, amid all the praise for his
various strengths—those arms, those lines, those round muscle bellies—there was always some mention of his greatest weakness: “Yeah, but can he ever get enough back size to win the Mr Olympia?”
After all, the Sandow Society is the domain of Lee Haney, Dorian Yates, and Ronnie Coleman, who, by the end of 2005, had collectively won 22 of the 41 Olympias, largely because they possessed the three greatest
backs of their eras. Year after year, body-building’s ultimate title was decided when those in the O’s first callout unfurled their rear-lat spreads and locked in their rear double biceps.
None of this was news to Heath. He heard “Yeah, but…” over and over again. He knew all about the backs of Mr Os, including Jay Cutler, who, beginning in 2006, won four out of five Olympias with his hang-glider lats. So the Gift went about putting in the work needed to join them in the physique pantheon. The trans- formation of Heath’s back from a weakness
to a strength has been one of the most dramatic alterations in bodybuilding history. When he won his first Sandow in 2011, the contest was decided the moment he crunched in his rear double biceps and gasps filled the Orleans Arena. And he hasn’t rested on his laurels.
juST KEEP WORKING A typical Heath back workout begins with front pulldowns. The only question is what type of grip he’ll use on that particular day. “I switch between parallel and underhand
Phil Heath took the bodybuilding backs of their eras. Year after year, body-
In the begInnIng, there
was always a “yeah, but…”
000FLEX
with a fairly wide grip,” he says. “With these, I always focus on where my elbows are going as I pull them down. That’s the key to targeting your back—pull with your elbows working like levers and bring them down to your sides. And really, I’m just trying to get the blood flowing into my lats.”
One way Heath enhances the pump is by maintaining a brisk pace. “Usually on this workout I only rest about a minute to 75 seconds between sets because I’m trying to get in a lot of stuff. With back, because it’s such a big body part, I want to just keep working and hit a lot of areas with different exercises.”
A BETTER CONTRACTION Next up are barbell rows, which Heath tends to do underhand in the manner of Dorian Yates (six Sandows), but with his torso nearly parallel to the floor in the manner of Lee Haney (eight Sandows) and Ronnie Coleman (eight Sandows). “The biggest thing about this is keeping your back flat,” the Gift avers. “A lot of guys end up going too heavy, and their chest ends up going up too high. What I try to do is go not quite 90 degrees [torso parallel to the floor] but damn close. You get a better contraction that way.
“I want to maintain that constant tension,” he adds. “You’re going to have those sets where you just want to bang out 10 reps, but on this particular one it’s not about that. It’s about being able to move the weight but squeeze your lower lats. That’s what’s going to give you that really nice lower lat sweep. This is a density exercise. Every guy who’s had a great back has done this, be it overhand or underhand. For me, underhand works better. Just be careful when going underhand that you don’t go too heavy and pull with your biceps. You have to make sure you’re always concentrating on your back working. A perfect way to do it is to watch yourself in the mirror to see your form.”
FEEL THE STRETCH The next exercise is the high-pulley row, bringing the bar down at approximately a 45-degree angle. “The biggest thing on this is to make sure you get a full stretch on the way
with a fairly wide grip,” he says. “With these,
“You have to make
sure You’re alwaYs
concentrating on
Your back working.”
tension,” he adds. “You’re going to have those sets where you just want to bang out 10 reps, but on this particular one it’s not about that. It’s about being able to move the weight but squeeze your lower lats. That’s what’s going
34 FLEX
After the high pulley rows Heath does either one-arm dumbbell rows or T-bar rows, typically alternating them each workout. He explains his technique with T-bar rows. “I do these either from the floor or on one of the stations where your chest is supported. The key when doing them off the floor is to not let momentum take over. You don’t want the weight to pull you down so you have to hump it up each time. Use a weight you can master, and then you can go heavier later, once you’ve got the form down. This is such an awesome movement, but you want to get quality reps to really pack on that density. The only way you’re going to make T-bar rows work for you is to make sure you’re controlling the weight. I’d suggest you try to stay low the entire time.
up and a full contraction at the bottom. Don’t just let gravity or momentum carry you along. You’re not trying to get pulled into position. You have to do the pulling. You need to feel the stretch. The stretch is a great way to learn how to open up your lats for a lat spread. And then I also like to hold contractions for at least a half-count. This is one of those exercises that you’re definitely going to be feeling, especially after just doing rows.”
CONTROL THE WEIGHTLook at Heath’s back routine and you see mostly rows. He hits his back from a variety of angles, but more by pulling his elbows back than down, thus building the density that wins rear shots.
movement, but you want to get quality reps to really pack on that density. The only way you’re going to make T-bar rows work for you is to make sure you’re controlling the weight. I’d suggest you try to stay low the entire time.
of angles, but more by pulling his elbows back than down, thus building the density that
If you can’t stay low, then you’re going too heavy and you’re going to be yanking up the weight and not using your lats as much.”
SLOW THINGS DOWN Near the end of his workout, Heath does low-cable rows, and he employs sevens—the FST-7 technique of doing (typically) seven sets with only 20–30 seconds rest between sets. “With these, you want to get a stretch just like you’re rowing a boat. It’s almost as if you’re stretching to touch your toes. And then, as you’re going back, you’re doing that rowing motion, but you don’t want to lean back too much—just a little bit. This is definitely one where you want to maintain constant tension, really make sure your technique is good.
“Slow thingS down,
and figure out how
to do the exerciSe correctly without
Straining yourSelf.”
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36 FLEX
2005
2009
2007
2011
KEVI
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(3);
BIll
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Oc
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BACK TALK ■ “The thing with back is, I don’t think anyone is going to complain that a guy’s back is too big. It’s like, your mid-back may be too big or your upper lats may be too small or there may be other problems with your back balance, but if you have a whole big-ass back, it’s going to be hard for a judge or anyone else to criticise your back. You never hear about anyone losing because their back was just too damn big.”
BACK TALK■ “The thing with back is, I don’t think anyone is going to complain that a guy’s back is too big. It’s like,
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38 FLEX
“The thing is, you’re not going to get a good pump if you’re doing it wrong. This is true of any exercise. You might start sweating and feel like you’re working, but you’re only going to get a good pump if you’re contracting the muscles. Slow things down, and figure out how to do the exercise correctly without straining yourself.” When asked which handle he prefers on low-cable rows, the Gift replies, “I use a V-handle most of the time, but you can also switch this one around and try it with a wider handle and different grips. I think that’s what makes this exercise fun. There are a lot of ways you can modify it.”
“You learn from those
who’ve gone before
You, and then You trY
it for Yourself.”
TRY NEW THINGS For his final back exercise, Heath delivers a surprise. Beginning this spring, he started adding pullovers to his repertoire. Many people do pullovers for chest, feeling this old-school lift stretches out the ribcage. In fact, it’s a better lat worker. “I either do these with a dumbbell on a bench or I use a pullover machine,” the Gift states. “You can also do them with an overhead cable, but I’ve been favouring the dumbbell or the machine. I’m lucky enough to have one of those pullover machines in the gym where I train. The key with these is to pull with your
elbows and not your arms. You can really take your biceps out of these and just focus on your lats.”
When told that a fellow member of the Sandow Society, Dorian Yates, favoured machine pullovers for his legendary lat width, Heath laughs, as he’s already well aware of this. “I steal everybody’s stuff. I mean, that’s what we gotta do. That’s what it’s all about. You learn from those who’ve gone before you, and then you try it for yourself. It may not work as well for your body, but you don’t know unless you try. You can’t be afraid to try new things.”
40 FLEX
A REALLY GOOD SQUEEZE Whether to work traps with shoulders or back is one of the enduring debates of bodybuild-ing. Put Mr Olympia down decidedly in the traps-with-back camp. For him, shrugs with either dumbbells or a machine is the perfect way to cap off his back workout. “I do higher reps on shrugs than most people,” he explains. “It’s not about the weight for me. Instead, it’s about trying to get a really good squeeze. I notice a lot of guys go too fast when shrugging. They’re just getting the weight up and down as fast as possible and missing the contraction and that time under tension. If you slow it down a little bit, it’s going to work your traps a lot harder, and that’s what it’s all about.”
YEAH, BUT…It’s a given that Phil Heath won’t have the widest lats in bodybuilding, but width is limited by your DNA-determined structure. Heath is proof you can win rear comparisons—even among the likes of Jay Cutler, Kai Greene, and Shawn Rhoden—with density, separation, and head-to-foot muscle quality.
He did it in previous contests and eliminated his primary “Yeah, but…” Yeah, but can he ever get enough back size to win the Mr Olympia? Now, the only question remaining about Phil Heath is: Yeah, but how long can he stay at the top of the bodybuilding world?
Yeah, but maybe we won’t find out for many years to come. FLEX
HEATH’S BACK AND TRAPS WORKOUTEXERCISE SETS REPS
Front Pulldown 3–4 10–15
Underhand Barbell Row 3–4 10–12
High-pulley Row 3–4 10–12
T-bar Row 4 12
Seated Cable Row 7* 10–12
Pullover 3 15–20
Shrug 3 15–20
*“Sevens” (FST-7 technique), 7 sets with 20–30 sec. rest between sets.
HEATH’S OLYMPIA TRAINING SPLIT
DAY 1 Quads (AM)Hamstrings, calves (PM)
DAY 2 Chest, triceps
DAY 3 Back, biceps
DAY 4 Quads (AM) Hamstrings, calves (PM)
DAY 5 Shoulders
DAY 6 Off
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42 FLEX
In this training seminar, Flex Lewis demolishes legs, all without the help of one very revered exercise in the bodybuilding canon
“I’ve never been a big squatter, to be honest,” says Flex Lewis. Yes, the bodybuilder whose signature calling card is his giant-slaying quads and hamstrings—he with thighs so dominant he had to essentially take a
year off training them hard not once in his career, but twice, to allow his upper body to catch up—doesn’t make much use of the so-called king of all exercises.
Blasphemous? In the circles Lewis used to run in, absolutely. After all, the Welsh-born 29-year-old forged his initial love of iron in the realm of powerlifting, where to speak ill of the revered squat is akin to treason.
Bodybuilding books and magazine articles are strewn with odes to the squat. Champions past and present swear by its muscle-swelling capabilities. It’s been decreed that it’s improbable, and perhaps impossible, to build any truly awe- inspiring size in your lower body without it.
Yet Lewis isn’t swayed. “I did squat when I was a powerlifter, but I didn’t see or feel any real benefit from them,” he says, undeterred by his bold smite of the lifting gods. “I know some people feel it’s the bread-and-butter exercise, but I think it has nothing on the leg press, to be honest. I feel leg presses offer more stability—there’s just one way down, one way up, giving you focus and limiting your ability to cheat.”
Some of the more offended gym rats, put off by such a squat slight, may stop reading right there. That would be a shame, because not only does Lewis have a lot of wisdom to share—including the blueprint to two epic fibre-splitting leg routines—but also, he accomplishes something even more important: he’s living proof that in bodybuilding, never blindly following the often-accepted mantras of the game is the surest way to reaching your ultimate potential.
LEWIS LASHES LEGS
43FLEX
Battle test
Leg extension StatS: 5–7 sets (2–3 warm-up and 3–4 working sets), 15–25 reps, one- quarter to full stack
n Lewis’ take: “I change my other exercises all the time, but I always do extensions first. During warm-ups, I’ll always stretch in-between sets by placing one leg up behind me on a bench and squatting down.”
n Do It Right: Lewis settles himself on the seat with the pads set to hit at the front of his ankles. Holding the handles at his sides, he chooses a “mediocre weight” to start, then pyramids up from there. “I focus on the squeeze and full rotation from the bottom all the way to the top,” he says. “I hold the top for half a second, imagining myself onstage standing in front of the judges and squeezing my legs, showing the separation between each muscle group.” As he lowers to the start, he’s sure to never let the weight stack touch down for rest between reps.
n Intensity tip: “I’ll turn my feet in or out sometimes to get that extra contraction. I’ll also sometimes get my training partner to help me do one or two negatives at the end of a set—he’ll lend a finger to get the weight up as I’m failing and I’ll take it down slow.”
n The consummate road warrior, Lewis has never been shy about flying off to meet his fans across the globe. Since last year’s Olympia, he’s been to the Czech Republic, home to the U.K. for a short visit, then on to Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Slovakia, Denmark, Austria, and done tours of the U.S., including a West Coast, East Coast, and Texas swing.
“The blessing of doing all this travelling—it doesn’t allow me to get too big,” he says. “Funny as that sounds, it keeps me in the range as much as it pisses me off. I might get up to about 240, lose six to eight pounds, put five pounds back on—it’s a constant yo-yo. But then 15 weeks out from the show I set
up shop and stay home to prepare for the show, bringing my weight exactly to where I need to be.”
In early July, Lewis was hunkered down in his new home base in Florida just outside of Boca Raton. Just a few weeks removed from hosting the NPC Flex Lewis Classic, a rapidly-grow-ing amateur event – a show in its third year, now with 156 competi-tors across 14 divisions, it’ll be eligible to become a national qualifier for competitors next year—he was switching gears. Next stop, the Olympia 212.
Lewis won the first 212 Showdown crown in 2012, beating 2008’s inaugural winner of the 202 Showdown, David Henry,
no question a well-earned victory against a crowded and talented field.
But English, who three-peated from 2009 to 2011, and beat Lewis in a controversial decision that last year—after Lewis had walked away from the prejudging rounds with the lead in hand—bowed out of the 2012 rendition, citing a partial patella tendon tear.
To Lewis, that meant unfinished business. “I feel the main threat is probably going to come from David Henry,” he said, in the run-up to the 2013 212 Showdown. “But the guy I want onstage is Kevin English.”
That wish, Lewis explained, is simply due to his fighter’s
44 FLEX
Leg PressStatS: 6–7 sets conventional stance, 30–50 reps; 3 sets wide stance, 15–20 reps
n Lewis’ take: “As I’ve said, I prefer the leg press over the squat. I’ve built the legs I have today on the press.”
n Do It Right: Lewis begins with four or five plates per side, sitting on the pad with his lower back firmly in contact with it. Extending his knees and releasing the supports, he lowers the sled as deeply as possible, bringing his knees towards his chest before explosively pressing it back up. “The days of me trying to put every plate on the leg press are gone now, I’m not trying to set a personal best,” Lewis says. “Coming from a powerlifting background, I have to segregate my mind-set of training super heavy. When I’m in the thick of my offseason and not on the road, I may train more in that style—I feel like I’m a strong bodybuilder for my chosen craft—but that isn’t what I want to do most of the time. I enjoy reps, and I enjoy building the pump.” For his wide-stance sets, he’ll put his feet out near the edge of the platform and come down to the point where his knees pass his ribcage and his lower back curls an inch or two off the pad.
n Intensity tip: “As the weights increase from set to set, the rep range remains the same, but I’ll make those reps harder by slowing down on the negative.”
mentality. “You want to beat the person that beat you, and Kevin took the title from me in 2011. I want to beat him now to have an ease in my mind. It’s unresolved business that needs to be taken care of.
“This is me speaking as an athlete, not as a disgruntled bodybuilder,” he was quick to add. “We’re all friends, but this is business.”
And how rests the head that wears the crown? Lewis admits the pressure is greater when you’re the champ. “I go to bed scared and wake up hungry,” he says. “Scared to lose the title, hungry enough to make sure it’s not going to happen.”
NO HOLDS BARREDWhen it comes to leg training, Lewis may not squat, but he certainly doesn’t back away from torturous, stomach-churning intensity. His quadriceps and hamstrings sessions—usually separated by a day, with the former taking up to 90 minutes to complete—include all manner of overload
techniques, including partials, forced reps, rest-pause, and negatives.
“I should probably start with a little history of my legs,” Lewis says. “When I was an under-21 junior bodybuilder competing in the U.K. and Europe, my legs overpowered my physique. Speaking to my coach, Neil Hill (who appears in these photos), I took a year off from training them. I just did some leg extensions—I ended up doing the same thing the year before last, too.”
Now, however, he thinks his upper body has “caught up”—meaning the kid gloves are off, and he can train them again with fierce abandon. “What I do now is the same system as what I did when I was a junior, splitting up my quads and my hamstrings to focus maximum intensity on each.”
In this FLEX training seminar, Lewis walks us through each exercise he relies on these days for his Olympia prep, one by one, explaining how he performs each and sharing some of the wicked methods to his madness. You may not find the squat on this list, but no matter—you’ll still be gingerly limping out of the gym at the end if you follow Lewis’ lead.
45FLEX
StatS: 3 sets, 15–20 reps per leg
n Lewis’ take: “This exercise really finishes the job—that’s it, mate. Call it a day.”
n Do It Right: This move is similar to the quad stretches Lewis performs at the beginning of his workouts, but with one key difference: foot placement. Facing away from a flat bench a fair distance away, he places one leg up and back so that the top of his foot rests on the bench. What’s a fair distance? “My mistake when I was first learning this exercise was that my front leg wasn’t far enough away from the bench,” he says. “You have to put the leading leg far out and not keep it underneath your body. It’ll be scary at first because it’s outside of your comfort zone. Usually when you squat, your legs are directly under your torso. But having it out ahead of you means you get a maximum stretch and drive on that working leg.” From a standing position, you’ll bend your front knee as you drop your hips straight down—your lead knee should reach at least 90 degrees before reversing to a leg-straight position. Repeat for reps, then switch legs.
n Intensity tip: Although Lewis doesn’t recommend doing so until you’ve mastered the form, you can hold a weight plate at your chest, or dumbbells at your side, for added resistance.
One-Leg Squat
LewIS’ QuaDRIcepS woRkout
eXeRcISe SetS RepS
Day 1
Leg Extension 3–4* 15–25
Leg Press (conventional stance)
6–7 30–50
Leg Press (wide stance) 3 15–20
Sissy Squat 3–4 15–20
One-leg Squat (off bench)
3 15–20
* Plus 2–3 warm-up sets
46 FLEX
SiSSy SquatStatS: 3–4 sets, 15–20 reps
n Lewis’ take: “The sissy squat is a pretty difficult exercise to nail, but once you’ve got the motion going, it burns deep. It’s an exercise that you probably will use every other workout once you learn it.”
n Do It Right: Lewis has two different options to choose from—he prefers the sissy squat station (as shown in the photo), but his coach, Neil Hill, introduced him to a free-standing alternative that does well in a pinch. “Neil has me hold a weight plate or dumbbell with both hands, arms straight and 90 degrees from my body,” he explains. “I lean slightly back and squat down. The weight I’m holding acts as a counterbalance.” For the squat- apparatus-aided version, Lewis simply locks his legs into the supports and leans back while squatting as deep as he can go before bringing himself back upright.
n Intensity tip: “Just drive hard from the bottom, through your legs, and push for failure. Rest for a breather at the top to get more total reps per set. This exercise is a mental test of will.”
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StatS: 3 sets, all to failure
n Lewis’ take: “This one is very difficult. One of the only bodybuilders I’ve seen doing this was Alex Fedorov. Him being from Russia, me from Wales, it makes sense because we didn’t have access to a lot of equipment over there. We had to make do, and create a lot of exercises out of the few machines we had.”
n Do It Right: Facing away from the weight stack of a pulldown machine, Lewis clambers on so his shins are on the seat and his ankles are secured under the knee pads. Keeping his body straight from knees to head and folding his arms over his chest, he fully engages his hamstrings to support his body weight as he slowly leans forwards. He’ll go down as far as he can before flexing both hams strongly to reverse the downward motion and bring him back upright. As he fatigues, he’ll put his hands in front of him for safety, and to sometimes give himself a push off the floor.
n Intensity tip: “This exercise is intense enough without any tricks,” Lewis says. However, he does suggest striving to better your personal best over the weeks and months. “I remember clocking out once at 58 reps years ago—I haven’t beaten that again. Now I can maybe get 30 or so.”
Body-weight hamstring Curl “KamiKazes”
StatS: 6–7 sets (2–3 warm-ups and 4 working sets), 10–15 reps plus partials and dropsets
n Lewis’ take: “I change other exercises, but I’ll do the lying leg curl to start off every single time. It’s equivalent to me doing leg extensions every quad workout.”
n Do It Right: Lewis lies on the machine after adjusting it so the footpads hit just behind his Achilles. He grasps the handles for stability, then curls both hamstrings powerfully, bringing his ankles to his glutes before returning to the start. Like with the leg extension, he doesn’t allow the weight stack to touch down between reps. He pyramids the weight up on each successive set.
n Intensity tip: “With lying leg curls, you can be as sadistic as you want,” Lewis says ominously. “For me, the first set could be to failure at 15 reps, then slip the pin to a heavier weight and do butterfly kicks, moving just an inch or so for 50 reps, keeping the tension on from the back of my knee to the bottom of my hamstring. The next set, I’ll go for failure at 15 regular reps again, then drop the weight in half and fail again, then drop the weight slightly one more time and go to failure one more time. For the last set, I’ll do maybe 10 conventional reps, using the whole stack or close to it, then drop the weight in half and do another 10, then drop one more time and go for 10. For those final 10, I may need to use rest-pause, basically finishing with four powerful singles. After that, I’ll raise the weight to half to three-quarters of the stack and do 50 butterflies to finish off.”
lying leg Curl LewIS’ HamStRIngS woRkout
eXeRCISe SetS RePS
Day 2
Lying Leg Curl 4* 10–15 plus50 partials
Body-weight Hamstring Curl “Kamikazes”
3 To failure
One-leg Hamstring Curl
3 8–10 plus 4forced reps
* Plus 2–3 warm-up sets
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SnapShot James “Flex” lewisBirthplace: SwanseaBirthdate: Nov. 15, 1983Current Residence: FloridaHeight: 5'5"Weight: 212 pounds (contest); 230–240 pounds (off-season)Career Highlights: 2007 British Championships overall (pro card); 2008 Europa Super Show 202, 1st; 2008 Tampa Bay Pro 202, 2nd; 2008 Olympia 202 Showdown, 3rd; 2009 Atlantic City Pro 202, 1st; 2009 Olympia 202 Showdown, 5th; 2011 New York Pro 202, 2nd; 2011 British Grand Prix 202, 1st; 2011 Olympia 202 Showdown, 2nd; 2012 British Grand Prix 212, 1st; 2012 Prague Pro Championships 212, 1st; 2012 Olympia 212 Showdown, 1st;Sponsors: Weider/AMI,Gaspari NutritionOnline: flexlewis.net;Twitter @Flex_Lewis
one-leg hamString Curlstats: 3 sets, 8–10 plus 3–4 forced reps
n lewis’ take: “At this point, my hamstrings are fried, but I’ll always do three more sets of something, like the one-leg curl.”
n Do it Right: Settling into the apparatus, Lewis places his working leg so that the pad hits between his ankle and the bottom of his calf. Holding the handles with both hands to stabilise himself, he powerfully flexes his hamstrings to lift the weight, bringing it as high as he can go. “On this exercise, I’ll use a pretty light weight for most sets,” he says. “I’m concentrating on squeezing the hamstring. I imagine myself in a back lat spread onstage, seeing the hamstring ‘pop out’ for the judges.”
n intensity tip: Instead of simply doing conventional sets, Lewis will vary the range of motion. “During a rep, I’ll hold it at three-quarters of the way up for a count, then continue to 90 degrees and hold it again. Then I’ll lower it all the way back down. On the last one or two sets, after failure I’ll do three or four forced reps if I have a partner.” Flex
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by Dave Lee photographs by Chris sorenson/ The vLaDar Company
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The movie’s executive producers are Vladar Co. partner Edwin Meija,
Pumping Iron producer Jerome Gary, Damon Bingham, AMI chairman and
CEO David J. Pecker, and Jim Manion, NPC and IFBB Pro League president.
The conclusion of our behind-the-scenes look at the bodybuilding docudrama.
Last month we brought you the first part of our exclusive look at the making of Generation Iron, the feature film that takes viewers inside the sport of professional bodybuilding. Seven elite, professional body-
builders were captured on camera as they prepared for the 2012 Mr Olympia and the right to be named the greatest in the world. Now in part two, we continue our conversation with writer, director, and producer Vlad Yudin and the film’s breakout star, Mr Olympia Phil Heath.
TO SEE ThE TrAILErS, GO TO generation-iron.com
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FLEX: Judging from the photos, it’s clear that you had a sizeable crew on hand.VLAD YUDIN: Production quality was very important. Our goal was to make a monumental film that defined the sport as it is today. It had to have cinema quality, and to do that, you need the right team. We had 10 people, so we had the option of a smaller breakaway crew to follow the guys if necessary. Basically, we were with the athletes in some form or another at all times. At the Olympia, we had even more people. And everybody had worked on Hollywood films, so we had plenty of cinematic experience on the team.
You were at a couple of IFBB Pro League shows leading up to the Olympia, but what was it like being at the biggest event in the industry?That was my first Mr Olympia and it was a very cool experience. The Olympia is on a whole different level. The production value is enormous. It gives you a real sense of the scale of the contest and you can see why the athletes train so hard and make the sacrifice to be at this level. More than any other contest, you have to earn the right
to stand on that stage. The Olympia will always be No. 1, like the Oscars for the movie industry. They live for it because this is the absolute standard of excellence. You can’t go any higher.
One of the interesting facets of all sports is the rivalry between athletes, especially at the pro level, with so much on the line.
Everybody has an opinion, and when opinions start to clash, that can add fun and excitement to the sport. And I found that there was no shortage of opinions between these guys. And it’s not like some amateur talking about Phil; these are guys that have competed against him, and in some cases, even beaten him before. You’ll see that they were very open about sharing their opinions.
It was very important that the different personalities come through on-screen. It’s a misconception that bodybuilders are machines who just lift weights. The film shows that they have emotions just like everybody and they go through their highs and lows. They have to deal with everyday life as they’re training for the contest. And with the seven guys, you have the full range of personalities. You have the
scientific, methodical type in Ben, and the blue-collar type in Branch. Kai’s introspective while Phil is outgoing. Just like their training styles are different in the gym, so is the way they are outside of the gym, in the way they deal with people and everything else. I really like that aspect of the film. Showing them not only as world- class bodybuilders, but as regular people with regular-people concerns and commitments.
Now let’s skip over to Colorado, where you shot Phil Heath. This is an ensemble cast, but as the reigning champion, Phil certainly has a presence in the film, much like Arnold did in the original, as the “man to beat” and from the trailers, he definitely comes across that way.Phil’s a true champion. He’s achieved so much in a relatively
short period of time. If you want to be a successful bodybuilder you have to believe that you’re the best. That’s where it all starts. If you don’t believe it, no one else will. And the thing about that kind of belief is that you can tell if someone really believes in himself or is trying to convince others that he does. The way that champions look at things is different, and Phil has that. He has bigger goals. He’s not content with just being on top. He wants to make bodybuilding more exciting, make it bigger, and see it grow and attract more fans. That’s how the sport continues to get better, and Phil understands this because he has a good business sense. Yes, he’s outspoken, but he has that right. He’s earned it. He has worked hard for everything he has and went straight to the top, and the rest of the guys are chasing him.
JuST lIKE THEIr TrAININg STYlES ArE dIffErENT IN THE gYM, SO IS THE WAY THEY ArE OuTSIdE Of THE gYM, IN THE WAY THEY dEAl WITH PEOPlE ANd EvErYTHINg ElSE. I rEAllY lIKE THAT ASPEcT Of THE fIlM. ShowINg them Not oNLY AS worLD-cLASS boDYbUILDerS, bUt AS regULAr peopLe wIth regULAr peopLe coNcerNS AND commItmeNtS.
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The dynamic beTween Phil and Kai is Powerful and iT creaTes Tension. whenever you have ThaT beTween Two driven individuals going for The same Thing, the stakes go higher and higher. that’s exciting for the fans. and you need that tension to keep the narrative moving forwards.
There’s no denying that Phil is supremely confident as the world’s No. 1 bodybuilder. Last year was the first time he was on top, so it’s a little different defending your title as opposed to taking it from someone else. What struck you in the way he regarded the rest of the guys gunning for him?Phil realises that it comes with the territory. he’s achieved something only 12 other bodybuilders have done since 1965. That’s a very select group of athletes for such a long period of time. and Phil is a student of the sport so he understands the significance of being in the position he is and why it means so much for the other guys to try to achieve it, too. he’s very respectful of all the guys because he’s been there himself, when someone else was on top and he was trying to be no. 1. and having come close, he knows the disappointment of not achieving your goal. but like he said, that only pushes you harder for the next time. he knows where the others are coming from. at the same time, he’s very competitive. you don’t get to that position
without that streak. it’s evident in the way he carries himself. The olympia is his and he’ll do whatever it takes to keep it. in his mind, no one is coming into his house to take what he’s worked so long and hard for. i think he likes the challenge. Knowing that you beat the best to get where you are and now you’re the best and everyone is trying to beat you, that is what motivates all great champions. at the same time, he does it all with a graceful style. his intensity in the gym is amazing, but somehow he makes it look easy. everything he does, from the training, the eating, and everything else is in preparation for this one moment and there’s no hesitation or doubt that it will go exactly as he plans. and the way he interacts with people, he’s very approachable. he makes others feel comfortable because he’s very comfortable with himself. you can’t help but come away thinking, “yes, there’s a reason why this guy is the best in the world and he’s mr. olympia.”
Much like the Arnold and Lou rivalry, there’s a rivalry between Phil and Kai that seems to be one
of the driving forces in the film. This rivalry is for real. both are very successful but they’re very different. i don’t want to give away too much, but you really see it in the movie. Their outlooks in the sport and life in general, even their appearance—Phil with his shaved head and the clothes he wears and Kai with his braids and his trademark boots and all— total opposites. The dynamic between the two is powerful and it creates tension. whenever you have that between two driven individuals going for the same thing, the stakes go higher and higher. That’s exciting for the fans. and you need that tension to keep the narrative moving forwards. it was really highlighted at the olympia when they went at it and they were the last two standing. The whole movie
captures the rivalries between all the guys. you have the back-and-forth between branch and ben, branch and dennis, and of course, the central rivalry between Phil and Kai. one guy knows he’s being compared with this guy, and how does he stack up?
Finally, what is it that you want people to take away with them?The main question i’m trying to answer with this film is “what is bodybuilding and who are bodybuilders?” obviously it’s a sport, but it’s more than that. it’s a combination of sport, art, and science. it’s unique. it’s artistic expression using the human body. it’s competition. who are these guys and what motivates them to push the limits of what is physically possible? The film will deliver that answer.
SEIZING THE MOMENT Phil Heath on turning his second Mr Olympia win into a history-defining moment
You don’t see a lot of bodYbuilders smile or tell jokes. theY’re all super-serious. but how are you going to interest people if all you are is a big dude who just grunts, lifts weights, and scowls all the time?
FLEX: What was your first exposure to Pumping Iron and what was your impression of the movie?phil heath: i believe it was the first couple of months of being a bodybuilder, and i can definitely say it was very entertaining. of course, i knew arnold was going to win, but it was how he did it that impressed me.
How specifically?the way he toyed with everyone showed how supremely confident he was. and you could see that the other guys were definitely chasing him. You could even sense a little envy or jealousy because of all the things that joe (Weider) was bringing to his table, as far as appearances and all the notoriety, which is to be expected given that he was a five-time mr olympia at the time and rightfully deserving of all the spoils. but more than all of that, it was the balance he showed in his life. he had more balance than anyone else in the movie. he was doing his thing at muscle beach and Gold’s, eating,
doing photo shoots, chasing chicks, living the lifestyle, and all that stuff. then you had lou ferrigno training in the dungeon with his dad. that was all he was concerned with, almost to the point of being narcissistic. i didn’t relate to that. i didn’t think to myself, “that’s how i want to be.” no disrespect to lou, but i wanted to be like arnold. i wanted to be the guy that people are painting pictures about; the guy having fun and enjoying everything that came with being the absolute best. everywhere he went people were falling at his feet. i mean, i’m sure he had his haters, as everyone does, but he was respected. i can relate to that, especially now because i’m dealing with it myself. i have a lot of fans, but i also have a lot of competitors and people who don’t like who i am and what i’m about. but at the end of the night, he stomped on these guys and he did it with a smile on his face. You couldn’t say that he wasn’t good and didn’t deserve it because he was obviously very focused, but
not with this crazy do-or-die attitude like there’s nothing else in the world. You see him training his ass off and the next minute he’s telling jokes. that’s how i am. i can turn it on and be as hardcore as the next guy but i can also make people laugh and have fun with it. You don’t see a lot of bodybuilders smile or tell jokes. they’re all super-serious. but how are you going to interest people if all you are is a big dude who just grunts, lifts weights, and scowls all the time?
How did you become involved with Generation Iron?robin Chang (of ami) told me there was a potential re-telling of Pumping Iron, a movie that would pick up where the original left off, and i thought, “Gosh, if that really
does come to fruition i’d love to be a part of it.” it would be an honour. then when i actually talked to the Vladar Company guys, they gave me an idea of what their vision was. You have to realise that bodybuilders get offers for movies or tV, but then we’re not treated with respect. it’s usually done as a mockery or to make us look stupid. they didn’t come off like that at all. they were for real. and it was their attitude and enthusiasm for the sport that sealed the deal.
Were there any concerns that this might affect your ability to defend the Mr Olympia?initially it raised some questions, but more so for hany [rambod, heath’s trainer/nutritionist] than it did for me.
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I realISed that I needed to remInd them how good I really am, I needed to remInd the world. I vIewed It aS an aweSome opportunIty to have my olympIa wIn on fIlm.
I actually saw it as an opportunity. Because I knew I was going to be a part of history, I was going to lift heavier and be more intense. I figured it was going to help me mentally, physically, and emotionally to turn it up a notch. Getting ready, you know the other guys are talking trash and they were kind enough to share some of that with me, so I realised that I needed to remind them how good I really am, I needed to remind the world. I viewed it as an awesome opportunity to have my olympia win on film.
one of the things I noticed about our sport compared to others is that we’re so afraid to fall on our faces that we don’t take chances and come right out and say that we expect to win. If
you look at the Super Bowl, both teams have champagne in their locker rooms, hats and shirts with “Super Bowl Champs” printed on them because they expect to win, even though only one of those teams will go home with the trophy. But an athlete doesn’t go into a contest not believing that he can win. at least I don’t. I expected to win. I had every intention of winning. that’s why I worked so hard for it. I wanted to be in the history books again. you have to step up in those moments and have the confidence to show the world that you believe in yourself. It was a chance to put my legacy on film.
And what about the film crew? You’ve done a lot of training
videos but what was it like being on a real movie set for the first time?It was a trip at first. I had an 11-man posse and an rv parked outside my house. the neighbours thought I was doing a reality-tv show. that’s when it hit me that this was real and it made me very excited for the whole thing. But I was pretty comfortable in front of all the cameras. one of the things that sticks out, and I hope they show it, was that I was making vlad laugh so much that he’d have to re-shoot and tell me to say the same things.
one night, we were at the gym shooting a workout, and the next thing you know, there’s a big-ass bus, and out come all these Japanese people. and it was just like the scene where arnold is in the prison posing, but this time it’s at the gym and I’m training. I was surrounded. people clicking away and every time I finished a set they would applaud. It was crazy!
You said before that having the cameras there helped you. Can you explain that?anytime you have cameras in front of you, it’s a reminder to not screw around. It’s extra motivation. you think about how you want to be remembered on film because thousands of people are going to be watching it and it’s for ever. let’s face it, shooting free throws in your backyard is different from doing it in a high-pressure situation in front of 20,000 people. But I have experience with that from my basketball days, and others who aren’t used to performing in front of a crowd might not shine in that moment. I mean, bodybuilders by definition are introverted. they don’t want the attention, but on the other hand they do want it because they’re working so hard to build their physiques and they want to be recognised for it. It’s funny because you see guys trying to copy my swagger onstage, trying to pump up the crowd and all, but the reaction isn’t the same
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We do it every day, not With fads or gimmicks, but With fundamental diets and training programmes… It would be great for the general PublIc to realIse that they can do It, too.
because you can tell they’re not comfortable doing it. It’s like when a rapper tries to raise the roof and the crowd doesn’t respond. then you get another guy who just says a couple of lyrics, and the crowd stands up, and the place is jumping. It’s just like acting. you can read the script, but if you want to nail it like an oscar-winning actor, you have to own it. charisma comes from within. you can’t fake it. that comes from being in tune with who you are and what you’re trying to represent. for me, I just love people and it comes out in the way I do things. and I realise that being in my position, all eyes are on me. there’s always someone watching, so you give it your best shot. I know guys are taking notes on my workouts at the gym or snapping photos when my back is turned, and they don’t think I
notice. but hey, there’s a picture of me training five minutes later online. as a bodybuilder, that’s what I signed up for. we’re judged onstage and everywhere we go. you have to be a strong-minded person to handle that. People can think they are, but until they walk in those shoes, they’re not battle-tested.
You saw the trailer for the first time last year during the contest. What did you think of it or were you too focused on the show to really have an opinion?I thought, “holy shit! this is crazy.” I said to myself, “I gotta win this contest tonight.” and the best part is that moving forwards into this year’s o, all the guys who talked trash in Generation Iron are going to have to watch that movie, and watch me win. [Laughs]
What do you want people to think about bodybuilding and bodybuilders after watching this movie?I want them to get an honest look at the sport. If I could ask each person to write down their top 10 impressions of bodybuilding before they see the movie and then another list of 10 things after watching it, I’d hope that their stereotypes would be gone and that those 10 new things would be positive. each and every one of us puts a ton of effort into this. the movie will show what we go through and that we’re professional athletes with a great perspective on the world of health and fitness. we do it every day, not with fads or gimmicks, but with fundamental diets and training programmes that actually help us lose fat while gaining muscle. It would be great for the general public to realise that they can do it, too. you don’t have to be Mr olympia or a professional bodybuilder to excel at this sport and use it to improve your current situation.
and for those guys who do want to be Mr olympia one day, they can say, “I don’t have to be a basketball player, I can be a bodybuilder like Phil heath.” let’s be honest, most kids want to play pro sports for fame and money. and this movie is making me look like the biggest basketball player there is, which I’m not, but bodybuilding has given me a very comfortable lifestyle. Parents can see that here is an educated family man who works hard and is a decent role model. Mr olympia can be a role model who can motivate you to do better things. I want them to learn something new. the next time they see a bodybuilder, especially a pro who makes his living in this sport, maybe instead of sneering or making backhand-ed compliments, they can look at that person and say, “I admire your work, that takes a lot of dedication.” fleX
Watch out for updates on the international release dates for the movie and the DVD of Generation Iron
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Blow it up with this modern-day twist on a timeless classic by DaviD SanDler
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programmes of yesteryear, but while the battle on the iron playing field continues, overwhelming support suggests that to hang amongst the superthick, a volume-oriented approach is a must-try. And thus, this programme is set.
The SecreT To The SucceSS of Volume
The first secret is that there really are no secrets. In fact, since volume training has been around for decades, if anything, the folks who walk the walk should provide all the testimonial needed. But for those of you who need a little more convincing, here are a few things that point to volume training as being superior for increasing true muscle size.
■ In a recent study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, investigators found that a multi-set training protocol increased both muscle cross-sectional area
It’s undeniable. Whether fortified with solid research or enshrined in the practice of the
giants, the more you do, the bigger you get. Some 40 years ago, volume training was common practice among the best of the best. Seven-time Mr Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger, who epitomised the perfect physique and brought the sport to its rightful place, did it. Tom Platz, who still holds legendary acclaim for the most massive thighs to step onstage, did it as well. Scores of other greats, like eight-time Mr Olympia Lee Haney followed, until a new breed of bodybuilders came along touting the benefits of far less volume. Under the guise of training regimes from the files of Nautilus pioneer Arthur Jones came successful competitors like Mike Mentzer. And there’s no denying the incredibly V-winged back of six-time Mr Olympia Dorian Yates. Others followed with equally impressive results using both methods, and the debate of set superiority began. Sure, there have been modifications to both the low- and high-volume training
(the size of the muscle) and overall strength when compared to a lower volume protocol.
■ Several other studies, both newer and older, have confirmed that volume, whether by increased set number or total time under tension produces superior strength and size gains compared to either traditional or reduced volume training.
But, before we just push the volume button and go to work, a shout-out for the low-volume, accentuated eccentric method and the going-to-failure method is deserved. Of course, as prudent scientists of the iron game, we can conclude that increasing volume, emphasising negatives, and taking sets deeper and further into exhaustion, combined with a higher volume protocol, should take muscle size to a new level. So the secret to this programme is to steal from the weak and add to the strong. We will do it all.
Volume meThodS
You’ve probably heard of German Volume Training, or GVT. It originated in Germany (hence the name) in the ’70s and has been used in various sports over the years. It’s spawned other variations of volume
Volume, whether by increased set number or total time under
tension, prduces superior strength and size gains.
Exercise Sets Reps Rest
Lat Pulldown (to front)
4 12 90 sec.
Reverse-grip Pulldown or Chin-up
4 10 120 sec.
Reverse-grip Barbell Row
4 10 120 sec.
T-bar Row 3 12 90 sec.
Upright Row 4 12 90 sec.
Barbell Shrug
4 12 90 sec.
Rear-delt Flye (machine)
4 12 90 sec.
Decline Weighted Sit-up
4 12 90 sec.
Rotational Lying Crunch
4 12 90 sec.
Hanging Leg Raise
4 12 90 sec.Day 1
Back
/Tra
ps/p
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aBs
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Day 2
Ches
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s/Ca
lves Exercise Sets Reps Rest
Decline Bench Press (wide-grip)
4 12 90 sec.
Bench Press (wide-grip)
4 10 120 sec.
Machine Flye
4 12 90 sec.
Incline Bench Press (wide-grip)
4 10 120 sec.
Behind-the-neck Press
3 10 120 sec.
Military Press
3 12 90 sec.
Lateral Raise
4 12 90 sec.
Standing Calf Raise (toes in)
4 12 90 sec.
Standing Calf Raise (toes out)
4 12 90 sec.
Seated Calf Raise (toes straight)
4 12 90 sec.
Angles are the name of the game for attacking and building a muscle completely.
training, all serving its useful purpose. Some have considered German Volume Training as a way to break through plateaus, others have suggested it helps with increasing strength and size. One thing that is synonymous with all volume training is that it’s deceptively challenging, and by the time you’re done, you’re generally burnt: not just fried, but thoroughly scorched. The original volume training methods were based on 10 sets of 10 reps (called 10x10s) of single exercises, generally two per workout with antagonis-tic muscle groups. For example, a common training programme was to do chest and back together, either alternating between sets or completing one full 10x10 then following it with the next exercise. From that came 8x8s. While this kind of method may work well for those specific lifts, if you want to get your entire muscle to grow, you need to make sure that you’ve covered all the movement patterns they’re involved in. Our programme puts a slightly different angle on the traditional approach to volume training.
A New ANgle
Angles are the name of the game for attacking and building a muscle completely. Even those muscles with
seemingly perfect straight lines from end to end can use a little rotation here and there. Some muscles, like your pecs, lats, and glutes, due to muscle fibre orientation, lend themselves to the need for differentiation simply because of their overall structure. For others with a more parallel-running fibre distribution, if they have multiple heads with different attachment points, which most do, a new angle may be just what those stubborn peaks are calling for. As you work through this programme, the exercises are specifically designed to hit every possible line of pull that your muscles could perform, leaving no possibility of uneven-ness! So the volume equation is balanced with multiple sets with different hand, foot, and body positions.
No eAsy wAy out… No shortcut home
Sounds like something from an old Rocky movie. It is. Those song lyrics suggest that hard work is the only way to combat your issues. Avoidance doesn’t work. One of the key things that’ll help your physique is to move the exercises, or even the workouts themselves, around to target your weakest areas. By now you know that big arms alone won’t cut it onstage or on the beach,
so if your calves are lagging, move them up front. Do them first, when you’re full of energy, and rather than dread getting to them, they’ll be behind you and you’ll be
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moving on to exercises you like better. The other piece to working hard is to keep the emphasis on the muscle being trained. Sure, cheat reps are fine and, in fact, I’m a big advocate of them—when they’re the last few in a set. Swinging, bouncing, and short-changing your reps reduces the chance for those muscles to get beaten up, and thus you’ll find that your weak spots are still weak. But no matter how you choose to complete these workouts, if you don’t leave the gym completely swollen with a range of motion half what you came in with, chances are, you didn’t work hard enough. Notice, I didn’t say that you had to be exhausted, nor did I suggest that several litres of water should have poured
off your body. For true hypertrophy training, use your pump-factor to determine your workout’s effectiveness.
Fuel Your Size
You’ve heard before that you need to fuel workouts and give your muscles some protein to build on. So that is not new, but let me share one other thing that you may not have known. Fuelling your system is more about recovery than it is about getting pumped for the workout. No doubt some big vascularity is great during a workout. Equally nice is being so amped up that nothing will stop you from terrorising the weights. While both are
important, neither of those will give you the post-size development you’re trying to build. My guess is that what’s most important to you is the size you build from that workout, and that comes from improving your ability to synthesise proteins and packing them in to place to build bigger muscle. Now I’m not here to give you a lesson in protein timing, but I can say, with solid proof both in the lab and on the gym floor, that having protein before, during, and after your workout is a must. The more refined the protein, the more bioactive (readily available) the constituents, the greater chance you stand of building muscle. Recovery starts from Rep 1. What that means is that the moment you begin that first rep, you begin to degrade the protein strands that form your muscle. If you’re breaking them down immediately, then why not repair them immediately? A pre-workout drink that has some vital amino acids will certainly help you. But as the workout continues and muscles continue to take a beating, protein synthesis (the rebuilding) is imminent and will only occur if protein is available.
ch
ris
lun
d
Day 3
Glut
es/l
eGs/
trice
ps/B
iceps Exercise Sets Reps Rest
Squat (normal stance)
4 10 120 sec.
Squat (wide stance)
3 10 120 sec.
Hack Squat 4 12 90 sec.
Leg Press 4 12 90 sec.
Leg Extension
3 12 90 sec.
Seated Leg Curl
4 12 90 sec.
Lying Leg Curl
4 12 90 sec.
Skull Crusher (cambered bar)
4 10 120 sec.
V-bar Triceps Pushdown
4 12 90 sec.
Close-grip Bench Press
4 12 90 sec.
Barbell Curl 4 10 120 sec.
Preacher Curl
4 12 90 sec.
Cable Curl 4 12 90 sec.
Short-changing your reps reduces the chance for those muscles to get beaten up, and thus you find that your weak spots are still weak.
Training SpliT For MaxiMiSing MuScle DenSiTy
Probably the most common question asked is, “How do we split workouts to get maximal results?” The perfect answer would be to create an eighth day of the week. No matter how you cut it, if you want to hit your body parts more than once a week, complete recovery may not be possible. Common volume splits work a single muscle each day and only once a week. Other splits combine all the muscles that contribute to a specific lift such as pecs, shoulders, and triceps, which are all pushing muscles. Intuitively, that is a great way to train, one I most often recommend, but also because of the number of exercises you’d have to perform that have the same pattern of movement, your smaller muscles inevitably don’t get the true push you’re looking for. Every once in a while it’s good to mix it up, target some smaller muscles separately from their bigger multijoint movement exercises, and hit them twice a week with solid volume. This is the nature of this programme. I won’t lie though: after 6 weeks (maybe eight for those of you who are fortunate), your body will be begging for a break and a chance to reset. The split shown here will work great when it’s cycled properly.
As volume is the name of the game, each training day will have 12–16 sets per body C
hri
s LU
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Day 4
Back
/Tra
ps/p
osTe
rior
DelTs
/aBs Exercise Sets Reps Rest
Rear-lat Pulldown
4 10 120 sec.
One-arm Dumbbell Row
4 12 90 sec.
Reverse-grip Dumbbell Row
3 10 120 sec.
Seated Cable Row (wide grip)
3 12 90 sec.
Dumbbell Upright Row
4 12 90 sec.
Dumbbell Shrug 4 12 90 sec.
Dumbbell Rear-lateral Raise
4 12 90 sec.
Decline Rotational Sit-up
3 12 90 sec.
Lying Crunch (Weighted)
3 12 90 sec.
Hanging Leg Raise
3 12 90 sec. Day 5
ches
T/an
Teri
or De
lTs/c
alve
s Exercise Sets Reps Rest
Dumbbell Decline Bench Press
3 12 90 sec.
Dumbbell Bench Press
4 10 120 sec.
Machine Flye 4 12 90 sec.
Dumbbell Incline Bench Press
3 10 120 sec.
Dumbbell Shoulder Press
3 12 90 sec.
Lateral Raise 4 12 90 sec.
Standing Calf Raise (toes in)
3 12 90 sec.
Standing Calf Raise (toes out)
3 12 90 sec.
Seated Calf Raise (toes straight)
3 12 90 sec.
This programme will push your limits of size, make you feel like you’ve maxed your skin’s ability
to stretch, and give you serious thickness in short order.
Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat Sun
Back Chest Glutes/Lower Back
Back Chest Glutes/Lower Back
OFF
Traps Anterior Delts
Hams/Quads
Traps Anterior Delts
Hams/Quads
OFF
Posterior Delts
Medial Delts
Triceps Posterior Delts
Medial Delts
Triceps OFF
Abs Calves Biceps Abs Calves Biceps OFFTrai
ninG
spliT
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part. Exercises are grouped together with the order designed to target a specific muscle at its various angles and finish with overlapping exercises for the next muscle group in the lift. For example, your back will start with heavy lat work and move up to the traps for the final exercises. The trap-training segment will finish with some wide-grip movements that accentuate posterior deltoid activation and thus the entire back, traps, and posterior delts get their full complement of exercises. So for this programme, order is very important. For maximal growth, 10–12 reps will be the regime with a full 90 seconds rest between sets but not more than 120 seconds. Rest is critical so that all the muscle fibres get an equal
PAVE
L YT
HJA
LL
Exercise Sets Reps Rest
Dumbbell Lunge (stationary)
4 10 120 sec.
Dumbbell Step-up
3 10 120 sec.
Leg Press 4 10 120 sec.
Stiff-leg Deadlift
3 12 90 sec.
Standing One-leg Curl
3 12 90 sec.
Lying Leg Curl
4 12 90 sec.
Dumbbell Skull Crusher
3 10 120 sec.
V-bar Triceps Pushdown
3 12 90 sec.
One-arm Overhead Extension
3 12 90 sec.
One-arm Cable Curl
3 10 120 sec.
One-arm Dumbbell Preacher Curl
3 12 90 sec.
Seated Alternating Dumbbell Curl
3 12 90 sec.
Day 6
Glut
es/l
eGs/
trice
ps/B
iceps
Unless you’re superhuman, you’ll need a break after
6–8 weeks. If you can keep it up longer, great, but at some
point, you need to cut back.
distribution of wear and tear as your load can stay heavier longer. Additionally, the first workout of the week per body part will be either a barbell or machine where the arms or legs are fixed to work together. The second workout of the week will feature dumbbells and single-limb movement patterns where both range of motion and control of weights can be accentuated. Again, since we’re trying to hit every fibre of every muscle, we need a varied approach to our training. And finally, if time is a concern as these could be long workouts, you can certainly alternate exercises between lower and upper body (do your calves in between your pecs or shoulders exercises) to get things done a little quicker.
Whether you choose to start your week with your back or not is your call, but the overall order for this programme is important to maximise recovery.
Words of EncouragEmEnt
This programme will push your limits of size, making you feel like you’ve maxed your skin’s ability to stretch. Unless you’re superhuman, you’ll need a break after 6–8 weeks. If you can keep it up longer, great, but at some point, you need to cut back, add some strength training, or some good solid endurance, before you hop back again. Over time, with this volume-oriented approach, even with good recovery tactics, your body will require more time to recover than you can give it with this type of programme. Call it a plateau, call it a mental block, but don’t call it quits, just make some changes, and keep this routine in your arsenal—you’ll use it again. fLEX
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INS
TR
UC
TIO
NBY STUART McROBERT PHOTOS BY CHRIS LUND
By explaining how I started right as a bodybuilder, but then went wrong, you can learn how to start right (if
you’re a beginner), or fix what you’re doing if you’ve lost your way, and thereafter stay on the right way. Only by staying on the right way for long enough will you give yourself the opportunity to realise your natural potential for bodybuilding.
I started lifting weights in the 1970s when I was 15, in a community centre’s “dungeon gym” in north-east England, with only bare-bones equipment. At the time, my sources of training instruction were primarily a few books I borrowed from the library, and from the less-than-a-dozen men who used that gym. Most urged me to train just twice a week, although one recommended three times a week. I stuck with twice a week to start with, and about eight exercises per full-body workout, for usually three work sets per exercise. The workouts were practical, I could train hard on them, and I had sufficient recovery time between sessions to be able to make steady progress in strength and muscle.
By “practical” workouts I mean that I still had sufficient time to be able to keep up with my school homework, and do paper rounds mornings and afternoons six days a week and several hours each Sunday morning. (But I did neglect my academic studies from the instant I was bitten by the bodybuilding bug, although I studied just enough to get sufficient O and A levels to be able to go to college and qualify as a school teacher.)
At the beginning of my bodybuilding experience, although my training volume and frequency were appropriate for me, my technique on some exercises was a mess. As a result, back, shoulder and knee aches and pains were common, and injuries that temporarily limited my training weren’t unusual.
Here’s a typical routine from that time, done twice weekly: sit-up, hyperextension, squat, calf raise, bench press, barbell bent-over row, press behind neck, curl. That was four big exercises and four small ones. But some of those exercises were poor selections, and alternating two different routines would have been better than the same one each time. With hindsight, the following programme would have been better, for eight-exercise workouts:
Workout One1. Squat2. Calf raise3. Deadlift (conventional style,
with bent legs)4. Bench press5. Chin-up6. Barbell press in front, seated
with back support7. Barbell curl8. Crunch sit-up
Workout Two1. Squat2. Calf raise3. Back extension
4. Parallel bar dip5. Prone barbell row from an elevated bench6. Dumbbell press, seated with back
support7. Dumbbell curl8. Crunch sit-up
Generally, I rushed my reps, and cheated freely. My squat technique was particularly poor—bar too high on my shoulders, feet too close, and insufficient flare to my feet. With the bench press, I lowered the bar close to my clavicles rather than close to my lower pec line, and I arched my back excessively. Although it was a few years before I actually started deadlifting, when I did do it my technique was a mess because I didn’t maintain a slightly hollow lower back.
Although I always seemed to have an ache or a pain somewhere, I still made steady progress initially—an indication of the resilience of youth, and the value of just two eight-exercise full-body workouts each week. I was generous with how much food and sleep I had at the time, so my recovery “machinery” was in good order.
Had I actually done the “with hindsight” programme just listed, and had I used correct exercise technique, I’d have made more progress than I actually did, and without any limitations from aches, pains and injuries.
Because twice-weekly training was working, to a degree, and because one man at the gym plugged three workouts a week, I thought that thrice-weekly training would increase my progress. But it was hopeless. Instead of training Sunday-Wednesday, I changed to Sunday-Wednesday-Friday. I tried the same routine each time, but there was no way I could recover from that. The Sunday to Wednesday period was the only time I seemed to recover. No way could I recover from Wednesday ready for Friday, and no way could I recover from Friday in order to be ready for Sunday. And when I reduced what I did on Fridays, even that still wouldn’t
HOW I STARTED RIGHT, BUT THEN WENT WRONG
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ARMINSCHOLZ
work. So back I went to twice weekly, and progress started happening again, albeit still hampered by the usual aches and pains.
Around this time I was heavily into reading bodybuilding magazines—from both the UK and the US. These promoted the training of the champions of the day, which were mostly six-day-a-week programmes. Those programmes worked well for those men, and produced spectacular results, so I thought that they would work for me, too.
I launched into longer workouts, split routines, and schedules that gave more time and attention to isolation exercises than the compound movements. So, for example, lateral raises, curls of various forms, pec flyes, triceps pushdowns, and leg extensions were highly rated. I gave the routines my all. And I ate lots of good food, and slept well every night. I gave bodybuilding priority over everything else in my life. Of my own volition I had no social life whatsoever, so that I could get lots of sleep every single night. And I never had a drop of alcohol. I didn’t go to a single party during that era.
No matter how I arranged the workouts, the results were always the same—a ton of effort and dedication, but for no muscle growth. How I persisted with this for so long, without grasping that the whole approach was fundamentally flawed, I don’t know.
The vital qualifiers to explain why those routines worked for the champions weren’t explained. Those men had terrific genetics for bodybuilding right from the start, but I was genetically normal for bodybuilding, other than having an obsessive drive to train hard and apply myself to the components of recuperation with great dedication—and I was doing it all naturally.
Paradoxically, during that long period of frustration and disappointment, I had brief spells when I’d temporarily doubt the validity of the four or more workouts per week, and return to the sort of programme that I first started with. And I’d make progress once again. But because my exercise technique was still dodgy, my progress was hampered by the usual aches and pains. But the progress I made only got me thinking that I was ready for more “advanced” training methods, and thus I’d return to yet another interpretation of the higher volume and higher frequency
approach to bodybuilding that the big-name bodybuilders were using, but always with the same outcome—no muscle growth.
During this era, Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer were in their pomp promoting high-intensity training. While I’d always trained hard, the urging of Jones and Mentzer had me training even harder. The use of forced reps, negative reps, descending sets, and pre-exhaustion enabled me to annihilate myself in the gym from just a small volume of exercise. But that also failed to produce muscle growth.
Hard training is essential, of course, but intensely hard training can be counter-productive.
WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONELooking back to when I was 15, had I adopted the following approach, and stuck with it, I think it would have been close to optimal for genetically normal bodybuilders. In about five years I would have been able to bench press 300 for reps, squat 400 for reps, and deadlift 500 for reps, with dips, chins, rows and overhead presses being at a comparable level to the big three exercises. These would have been spectacular results for a genetically normal 20-year-old bodybuilder. And with body fat under 12% I’d have had good definition, and had I got it under 10% I’d have had a physique that would have knocked the socks off almost everyone. Such results are achieveable to you, provided you’re not limited by age, and provided you’re sufficiently motivated and dedicated.
Don’t think that the deadlift is for powerlifters only. Done properly, which includes correct exercise technique, it’s one of the greatest muscle builders because it heavily involves so much muscle. Even some of the greats of modern-day bodybuilding appreciated the value of the conventional deadlift, and incorporated it in their routines. Arnold did, Franco Columbu did, and Robby Robinson did.
Rather than doing routines with eight exercises in them, just six exercises would have been better. The shorter workouts would have enabled me to maintain a higher level of
ROBBy ROBINSON
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focus and effort on the primary exercises.Here’s the general format I now wish I had
applied when I started out, and stuck to religiously for as long as I wanted to grow
bigger muscles. I always liked Sunday-Wednesday as my workout days, but you could choose another pairing of days. The format has four big exercises each workout,
and just two small exercises. Warm-ups plus three work sets of five reps for each of the big exercises, and a warm-up plus just two work sets for each of the small exercises, is a good
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general format to apply, although when deadlifting really hard, just warm-ups plus a single work set can be sufficient. Once a year, for several months, I should have shifted the squats to the 20-rep format—a fantastic growth strategy when applied properly.
Sunday1. Squat or parallel bar deadlift: warm-ups
plus 3 sets of 5 reps (or warm-ups plus 1 x 20)
2. Parallel bar dip: warm-ups plus 3 sets of 5 reps
3. Chest-supported row: warm-ups plus 3 sets of 5 reps
4. Dumbbell press, seated with back support: warm-ups plus 3 sets of 5 reps
5. Side bend or rotary torso: warm-up plus 2 sets of 8 reps each side
6. Curl: warm-up plus 2 sets of 6-8 reps
WedneSday1. Squat or leg press: warm-ups plus 3 sets
of 5 reps (or warm-ups plus 1 x 20)2. Calf raise: warm-up plus 2 sets of
15-20 reps3. Conventional deadlift: warm-ups plus
1-3 sets of 5 reps4. Bench press: warm-ups plus 3 sets of
5 reps5. Chin-up or pulldown: warm-ups plus
3 sets of 5 reps6. Crunch sit-up: warm-up plus 2 sets of
8-12 reps
I should have used correct exercise technique at all times, as I’ve explained at great length in my book Build Muscle, Lose Fat, Look Great. And, of course, I should have trained hard and fully satisfied the nutritional and rest/sleep components of recuperation (which I actually did, however). Then I could have gradually and consistently built up my exercise poundages to something really special by the standards of natural body-building. Small weight plates—half- and one-pound discs—would have been invaluable for making tiny poundage increases.
In this ideal world, I wouldn’t have followed the exact same routines all the time, but I would have followed the same overall format all the time. I would have varied the set-rep schemes
from time to time. And I wouldn’t have trained full-bore all of the time. Whenever I felt stale, I’d have taken a couple of workouts off, eased back a little on my poundages, and taken a few weeks to gradually return to my previous best prior to slowly moving into new poundage territory. Everything I did in the gym and out of the gym would have been geared to making me ever stronger over time. Little by little, the poundages would have become ever heavier, and my muscles would have become ever bigger.
Don’t be put off by the brevity of these workouts. Their brevity is key to bodybuilding success for genetically normal, natural bodybuilders—hardgainers. Only in this way can you train hard enough to stimulate growth without exceeding your ability to recover between workouts. But that brief hard work must be primarily applied to the key exercises—the four big exercises in each
workout. Just those exercises work most of the muscles in your physique, either directly or indirectly. Become really strong in those exercises, and you’ll transform your muscle development.
What I didn’t do but wish I had done, you can start to do now. Then you can get on with reaping terrific results. FLeX
Personalised, one-to-one training advice is now available from Stuart—by phone, email, MSN Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger. For further information, please contact him by email at [email protected]
Editor’s note: The author’s newest book is STUART McROBERT’S NEW BRAWN SERIES, BOOK 1: How to build up to 50 pounds of muscle the natural way. To order, contact Weider Mail Order on 01423 877 052.
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In the late ’80s and early ’90s, two bodybuilders earned
their pro cards and became immediate threats for the Mr Olympia title: Dorian Yates and Flex Wheeler. Yates, a six-time Mr Olympia, turned pro at the 1988 British Champion-ships and captured second place at his first Mr Olympia in 1991. Wheeler turned pro at the NPC USA Championships in 1992. He placed second at his first Olympia in 1993.
Fast-forward to the present, when Mamdouh “Big Ramy” Elssbiay won the 2012 IFBB Amateur Olympia in Kuwait and followed up this year with his first IFBB pro show, the New York Pro, defeating seasoned veteran Victor Martinez. The question that everyone was asking was, “Can Ramy do what no other bodybuilder has done before and win the Mr. Olympia his first time competing?” Elssbiay has soared to the top of the IFBB in a very short time, but not many people know his origins. FLEX sat down with long-time Weider athlete Dennis James and talked about his new protégé, Big Ramy.
by Robbie DuRanD photographs by aLeX aRDenTi
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FLEX: When did you first meet Ramy? DENNIS JAMES: I first met Ramy at Oxygen Gym, when he was a coach. I’ve travelled to Kuwait several times over the years because I’m very good friends with the owner of Oxygen Gym, Bader Boodai. In the gyms in Kuwait, there are what are called coaches—they’re much like a personal trainer, but they’d spot people and provide any assistance needed in the gym. Each gym has about 15 or 20 coaches who basically patrol the gym and give assistance to the other members working out. Bader is the one who saw the potential in Ramy, and he was the one who contacted me about working with him. Bader has single-handedly done more for the sport of bodybuilding in Kuwait than most other people put together. Bader started sending me pictures of Ramy, and that’s when I came to the conclusion that I should help this guy to see how far he can go. The results were nothing short of amazing.Ramy and I started working together at the end of 2011, but he was around 200 pounds and growing at an amazing pace. It was unbelievable—he was growing out of his clothes. He did a few contests, he did the Oxygen Gym Show, he did the Golden Cup and won the overall, but then we decided to do a big show—the Amateur Olympia in Kuwait in November 2012. It was an easy win for him. There was no one that came close to being anywhere near his league. I was competing at the Masters Olympia the same weekend that he was competing at the Amateur Olympia. It was motivating for both of us to know we were both dieting at the same time. His main focus was to get his pro card and get an invite to this year’s Olympia.
Give us a little bit about his background.Basically, all six of his brothers are fishermen, and they all came to Kuwait to become full-time fishermen. He was helping out his brothers with the business, and on the side he wanted to work at Oxygen Gym. Ramy always loved working out and he had heard that Bader was bringing all the top bodybuilding pros to the Oxygen Gyms in Kuwait, so he was trying to get a job at Oxygen Gym to follow his dreams of
becoming a bodybuilder some day. The club manager at one of the Oxygen Gyms, which Bader rarely went to, gave him a job. That’s how he got into bodybuilding. He told his family that he was going to stop the fishing business to get into bodybuilding. That was in 2010. Ramy had been working for Bader for about six months, but they’d never met and then Bader visited the gym and he was impressed with how much size he had for someone that was into bodybuilding only as a hobby. That’s when it all started and Bader started mentoring him. Believe it or not, Ramy has a room upstairs and actually sleeps at Oxygen Gym. The system is very different in Egypt (which is where Ramy is originally from)— it’s not uncommon for people to sleep at their workplaces. A typical day for Ramy is that he wakes up, goes downstairs and does cardio, showers, and then he works the pro shop for about 10 hours a day, trains that night, and then goes to sleep. At the Amateur Olympia, and I admit he wasn’t at his best—he turned pro after training for 2½ years and qualified for the Mr Olympia the same day.
How did you guys communicate about the diet and training plan for the Amateur Olympia? Was it by Skype or just e-mails? I couldn’t communicate with him because I didn’t speak the language! Bader was the one communicating with him. I’d send Bader the e-mails and plan and talk to him, and he’d then explain this to Ramy. I was doing his dieting and basically giving Bader everything to pass along because I wasn’t there. He was overseeing everything and it was unbelievable how well Ramy responded to the diet and the plan.
What adjustments after your first assessments did you make for the Amateur Olympia?I really didn’t have to tweak much. He responds so well to whatever he eats. I’ve never seen anything like it. He had all the size he ever needed, he just needed to come in ripped, so I put him on a low-carb diet. Here is the amazing part: where other people would lose muscle on low-carb diets, he would still gain weight and or maintain it. He was
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on 75 grams of carbs for a while and almost lost nothing. It’s very hard for him to lose weight. Two cardio sessions a day, two training sessions a day and he’s about 320 pounds and loses, like, one pound a month. His conditioning just keeps improving, too. People would come up to me at the New York Pro and say, “What did you do to get him so big and round?” I would say, “His body is just different. I can’t even explain it, it’s honestly incredible. This is probably one out of a billion people who can grow the way he can grow.” I really think Ramy is like one of those myostatin-deficient kids, where no matter what you do, because of his genetics, he just keeps gaining. I’ve never worked with such a genetically gifted person. Look at the gains he made between the Amateur Olympia and the New York Pro— it was only six months and he kept gaining muscle. Most body-builders, when they do a show and they have to compete again in six months, take some time off to recover and try to maintain or put on a little size between shows. But Ramy recuperated from the Amateur Olympia faster than any bodybuilder I’ve ever worked with. I can only imagine what he’s going to look like in a year or two once he has more muscle maturity. Ramy is going to shock the world, mark my words on this!
What are some of the adjustments that you made for the New York Pro?When he arrived here, he was still 300-plus pounds at six days out from the show, but I knew he needed to come down. He looked good standing by himself, but condition- wise he needed to be harder. Training for a little less than three years you can’t expect
him to have the same muscle development as these guys who have been training for 10, 15, 20 years. His muscles are still young and fresh because he’s only 28. I knew that we had to bring him down and dry him out. I had him on zero carbs four days before he left Kuwait. With most bodybuilders, flying long distances can result in their holding water, so I didn’t want him to get off the plane holding 10 pounds of water. During the four days before he left Kuwait, he had nothing but protein and water. By four days out from the New York Pro, he was 298 and coming down but still on zero carbs. So he was on zero carbs for 11 days before the show, and he lost
very little weight. Three days before the New York Pro he was 296, and we started carb loading. There was a major difference between other guys’ carb loading and his carb loading for him. We gave him only 350 grams of carbs. Most bodybuilders will carb load with 1,000 to 1,500 grams of carbs, but with Ramy, his body is so anabolic that he would’ve blown back up to 320 pounds, so I really cut back on the amount of carbs during the carb-loading process. I had to go with very low carbs, but he was still functioning well. Most guys, you put them on low carbs and they get fatigued and they don’t function well, but Ramy was still smiling, which goes to show
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that his body is very resistant to losing muscle mass when he diets.
How far can he go?The good thing about Ramy is he doesn’t have to worry about gaining any more muscle in his life, ever. He has all the size he needs to be Mr Olympia, he just needs to refine his definition. You’ll never see me have him do squats ever again, maybe some hack squats for separation. If his quads get any bigger, it will throw his balance off. All the IFBB pro judges have told me that he has all the size he’ll ever need, he just needs to be in better condition. How many pros out there can say that they don’t need to put on any more size? The thing about Ramy is that pictures do not do him justice until you stand next to him. Look at the New York Pro, when he stood next to seasoned veteran Victor Martinez and the rest of the line-up —he dwarfed them all! He’s in the perfect spot right now, just worrying about conditioning, not putting on size. Let the other guys chase him; he isn’t chasing anyone in size. I want to know, how many guys getting ready for the Olympia this year had Ramy on their minds? He wasn’t thinking about anyone but himself! This has never happened before, a guy who’d never been on the Olympia stage and everyone was worried about him. He hasn’t reached his true potential in terms of muscle maturity; he, like Phil Heath, has improved yearly, and can you imagine what Ramy will look like in five years? FLEX
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Hardgainers Ultimate Growth Enhancement system®
ISO-TENSIONHow flexing between sets can enhance muscle growth
THE WEIDER PRINCIPLES
Some of these Weider Principles are complicated, and some are easy. Iso-tension falls into the
latter category. It’s basically a fancy term for flexing. It’s how and when you do it that turns these weight-free contractions into a method for both focusing and intensifying
your workouts. You may have thought flexing was something only champion bodybuilders did regularly, especially in a public place like a gym. But we’re going to tell you why everyone should include iso-tension in their training to easily increase their gains.
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by GREG MERRITT
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n This tenet requires that you fully contract the targeted muscle(s) between sets and hold that contraction for 6–10 seconds. For example, if you’re doing pushdowns, immediately after each set lock your elbows straight and maximally flex your triceps. That example is easy to picture because you’re essentially duplicating the contraction of a pushdown, but do this same tensing regardless of the triceps exercise. Whether you’re doing one-arm dumbbell extensions, close-grip bench presses, or machine dips, straighten your arms and flex your triceps as hard as possible just after each set.
Here are a few iso-tension tips. First, this isn’t a good technique to do with compound lifts that involve many areas. For example, deadlifts
work too many muscles (spinal erectors, trapezius, glutes, quads, lats, etc.) to focus on just one. On the other hand, if the compound exercise has one primary muscle, applying iso-tension there can better direct the stress of your sets. As an example, flexing your chest between sets of bench presses can help you target your pecs (primary muscle) and use less of your delts and triceps (secondary muscles). When doing iso-tension with sets of arm or leg exercises, you may find you can flex harder and focus better by tensing just one limb at a time.
Finally, stretch the targeted muscle(s), too. Follow holds in the fully contracted position with holds in the fully stretched position for the same lengths of time.
THE WEIDER ISO-TENSION PRINCIPLE
n Our H.U.G.E.® iso-tension routine includes four ab exercises and four ab iso-tension contractions. Do this routine as a giant set, immediately following each iso-tension contraction with the next exercise. Do two giant set rotations at first, but work your way up to four in the following weeks. Together, the iso-tension contractions hit all four abdominal areas: lower, upper, sides, and inner. Here’s how to perform them.
n Lower Abs Lie on a bench with your thighs straight up and knees bent. Then raise your butt while tensing your lower abs. Hold this position.
n Upper Abs After each set of crunches, pull your shoulders off the bench and tense your upper abs for up to 10 seconds. This is essentially a static hold of the crunch contraction position.
n Side Abs After doing one segment (left or right) of side bends, maximally contract the side not holding the dumbbell (the working oblique) for up to 10 seconds.
n Inner Abs Pull in your waist as far as possible and hold this position for up to one minute.
H.U.G.E.® ISO-TENSION
ROUTINE
EXERCISE SETS REPS
Hanging Knee Raise
2–4 10–15
Lower Abs Iso-tension
2–4 6–10 sec.
Crunch 2–4 10–15
Upper Abs Iso-tension
2–4 6–10 sec.
Dumbbell Side Bend
2–4 10–15 (per side)
Side Abs Iso-tension
2–4 6–10 sec. (per side)
Rope Crunch 2–4 10–15
Inner Abs Iso-tension
2–4 15–60 sec.
H.U.G.E.® ISO-TENSION ABS ROUTINE
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FRESH TAKE
■ Although iso-tension prescribes that you flex between sets, it’s a training tool you should use outside the gym as well. Competitive bodybuilders know that posing practice is itself a workout. You, too, can benefit from striking mandatory poses, such as the rear-lat spread and the front double biceps. Doing so will teach you to better control your muscles during sets. Similarly, you can enhance your mind-to-muscle connection by iso-tensing your muscles throughout the day. One of the best body parts for this is abs. Even while seated at a desk or driving a car, you can crunch your chest down and tense your midsection to work your rectus abdominis. You can also pull in your waist as far as possible to hit your frequently neglected transversus abdominis (inner abs). Hold either position for as long as possible up to one minute, and do three to five iso-tension holds per session. FLEX
ADVANTAGES Here are the pluses of iso-tension
DISADVANTAGES There are two potential pitfalls of iso-tension. Here’s how to avoid them.
■ Mind-to-MuscLE connEction Flexing the targeted muscle(s) between sets lets you know the feeling you want to duplicate during the set. With practice, this will strengthen your focus so you can better work that area.
■ sEt continuation Doing iso-tension immediately after a set keeps the tension on the targeted area. Effectively, it’s a means of continuing the set without a training partner or even a weight, and it therefore lets you easily and safely push a set beyond failure.
■ REducEd REst tiME Keeping the tension on your muscle(s) after the set is going to eat into your rest time. Therefore, count the iso-tension time as workout time, not rest time. If you normally rest 90 seconds between sets, maintain that minute and a half but start it after the iso-tension and end it when your next set begins.
■ MispLacEd Focus Iso-tension can be difficult to apply to specific areas of muscles. For example, if you do it after sets of incline presses, you’ll likely flex your entire chest and not just your upper pecs. To some degree, this can’t be avoided, but strive to contract primarily the targeted area. With practice, you’ll strengthen your mind-to-muscle connection to that area.
THE WEIDER ISO-TENSION PRINCIPLE
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BY STUART McRobeRT photos BY chRiS lUndQ
&A
s
bodYbUildinG And TYPe 1 diAbeTeS
QI I have type 1 diabetes, and inject myself with insulin several times
a day. It seems to have made me a super hardgainer. I know that building a physique of the standard of the pros is way out of the question for me, but can I still build muscle?
AI Yes, but you must be especially savvy about proper training and recovery for hardgainers, and
expertly knowledgeable about diabetes and its effect on your energy levels and recovery ability. It will be even trickier to find the volume and frequency of training that works for you than it is for non-diabetic hardgainers.
Although your expressed concern is with the effect of diabetes on your bodybuilding, a much bigger concern is the effect of diabetes on your health. Diabetes is a very serious condition, with grave consequences if it’s not properly managed. But assuming that your diabetes is properly managed, then bodybuilding training should be helpful for your health provided it’s done in a way that’s appropriate for you and your recovery ability. If it’s not done in such a way, the bodybuilding will cause additional problems.
I’m not diabetic but Anth Bailes, the 2012 British champion, is. I also know someone
who has had type 1 diabetes for over 40 years, and has been a bodybuilder for most of those years. He’s an expert on diabetes and bodybuilding for hardgainers. His comments regarding how type 1 diabetes affects bodybuilding are below. Please read this advice and then discuss with your doctor the best way for you to proceed.
“The short-term limitations of muscle growth in a type 1 diabetic are represented by blood sugar fluctuations and the relative amount of insulin in circulation. Provided that the main things are in balance—food, exercise, insulin—someone with diabetes stands a good chance of recovering in a fashion similar to a non-diabetic. Unfortunately, that food-exercise-insulin balance can be upset by many factors, including exposure to sunlight, emotional stress, and infection. It’s a very complex balancing act, and maintaining good blood sugar levels is very tough indeed.
“If blood sugar is low, it means circulating insulin levels are high. Insulin is a storage hormone. Instead of storing protein as muscle during these times of low blood sugar, though, it’s busy trying to get sugar out of storage depots in the muscle and liver (in the form of glycogen) and into all the cells of the body. If blood sugar is too high, it means there’s not enough insulin to do storing of any kind. And in both cases, I’d expect recovery to be minimal, because both are emergency situations: survival trumps recovery.
“In practice it takes longer for a type 1 diabetic to recover from training, if only because a portion of every day and week is spent trying just to get blood sugars back to normal. (Of course, some people don’t even try, and for them I’d guess muscle growth and recovery would be minimal, if at all.)
“I can’t speak specifically about joint problems. I’ve been dealing for years with arthritis, and I’ve got a hemi-replacement of my shoulder joint in my near future. My other shoulder had adhesive capsulitis back in 2001
or so. I’ve also been dealing with joint problems in my fingers since 1995. That problem has a definite link to diabetes, since the majority of people it affects are diabetics. Based solely on that, I don’t think it’s out of the question that other joint problems afflict diabetics more than others, but I don’t know that as a fact.
“Along with correct exercise technique, I recommend low volume/high intensity training, because it yields much less wear and tear than higher volume and higher frequency methods. And slowing down the pace of repetitions will go a long way in lowering destructive forces on the joints, not only because of the smoothness of motion but also because of the lower resistance necessary for slower lifting.”
eFFecTiVe SQUATTinG
QIthe gym where I train has two power racks. I’ve seen some guys take the
barbell from saddles located on the outside of the rack uprights, and then squat outside of the rack. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of the power rack as a safety device?
AIYes, as demonstrated over the page by Hidetada Yamigishi. But the power rack can be used
purely as a bar holder and you can still squat safely provided you have two alert, competent spotters, one at each end of the bar. But such spotters aren’t always available—if ever available in some gyms.
A power rack is designed to be self- spotting, when used properly, so that you can squat your heart out without any fear that you could get trapped under the bar. But you must have the safety bars/pins positioned securely just a little below where the barbell is when you’re at your bottom position. And you must take the bar off weight saddles positioned inside the rack’s uprights. Then, if you fail on a rep, you can
BoDYBuIlDIng traInIng shoulD Be helpful for Your health provIDeD It’s Done In a waY that’s APPRoPRiATe FoR YoU And YoUR RecoVeRY AbiliTY
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MARK DUGDALE
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lower the bar under control and set it on the safety bars, get out from under the bar, rest a while, unload the bar, reposition it on the weight saddles, load it again, and perform your next set.
Never squat hard without the provision for safety. As a youngster, I squatted hard without such a safety set-up—and I often squatted alone. I had a few frightening
experiences when I failed on a rep and had to dump the bar onto the floor. Fortunately, I got away unscathed, but I could have sustained a horrible injury. Do as I teach, not as I did.
HIDETADA YAMAGISHI
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A power rack isn’t just for squatting, though. When properly used it’s also perfect for bench presses, incline presses, overhead presses, and a few other exercises.
ARNOLD-STYLE BENTOVER RAISES
QI Should I do bentover dumbbell raises while sitting at the end of a
bench, Arnold-style, or bent over while standing, in a more orthodox manner?
AI Should you be doing this exercise at all? Of course, for Arnold, Phil Heath and others
of their level, this sort of decision-making has significance. But unless you’re already sufficiently developed overall so that your focus is no longer on building muscle mass, but on refining your plentiful existing muscle mass, this exercise is a distraction from much more important exercises. You have limited training time, training energy and recovery ability, so use those precious resources wisely.
PRESSING PROBLEMS
QI When I use an ovehead press machine, where each side works
independently of the other, or when I use dumbbells, some reps are way harder than others (even early on in a set), and I tend to lean to one side in order to get the resistance up. What am I doing wrong?
AI You’re not lowering the handles or dumbbells in perfect synchrony, so when you get
to the bottom position one side is slightly ahead of the other, and you press them up out of kilter, too. Then you’re not symmetrical, and you’ll tend to lean to one side in an effort to compensate. The same problem can occur in the dumbbell bench press and incline press, and in any type of machine pressing motion that has each side work independently of the other. (Not only does this form fault make the reps harder to perform than they should be, but the asymmetry increases the risk of injury.)
The solution is simple—use correct exercise technique. Keep the dumbbells
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or handles moving in perfect synchrony. Pause at the top for a moment, lower the resistance in tandem, pause at the bottom for a moment (but while staying tight), and then push both sides up at the exact same time and pace. Be symmetrical.
LOU FERRIGNO
QI Is Lou Ferrigno another famous bodybuilder who made a big
impression on you during your youth?
AI He made an impression, but not anywhere near the extent of that made by Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Frank Zane, Sergio Oliva, Dave Draper, the Mentzer brothers, and a few others.
As a competitive bodybuilder, Lou Ferrigno was in his prime during the 1970s, although he made a return to competition in the early 1990s. (The photograph here is of him at the 1994 Mr Olympia.) He won the Mr America and Mr Universe titles in the early 1970s. At
the time he was presented as a contender for Schwarzenegger’s Mr
Olympia crown, but that was never to be. He came
second in 1974, and it was his attempt to beat Arnold in the 1975
Mr Olympia that was the subject of Pumping Iron, where Schwarzenegger was
victorious again. The documentary made Ferrigno famous, and further boosted Schwarzenegger’s fame.
It was during the 1970s that I got into bodybuilding, and I was fanatically dedicated to the task. Ferrigno left a mark on me because he was one of the big names who was in the muscle magazines during that time.
It was Ferrigno’s extraordinary massive-ness—height, and muscle girths—that made him (starting in 1977) the perfect person to play the Hulk in The Incredible HulkTV series, alongside Bill Bixby. I watched the early episodes of that series purely to see scientist Dr David Banner (Bixby’s character) morph into the Hulk, and to marvel at Ferrigno’s jaw-dropping physique. He was blessed with some of the most amazing genetics ever for bodybuilding.
I don’t recall anything memorable about Ferrigno’s training from the magazines at the time. He never had a profile like that of Schwarzenegger or Zane or Mike Mentzer, and as a result his training methods never made a mark on me. Not that they would have helped me if I had tried them, because I didn’t have the genetic and other advantages for bodybuilding that he had. FLEX
Personalised, one-to-one training advice is now available from Stuart—by phone, email, MSN Messenger, or Yahoo Messenger. For further information, please contact him by email at [email protected]
To submit a question for answering in this column, please send it to Stuart at the aforementioned email address.
Editor’s note: The author’s newest book is STUART McROBERT’S NEW BRAWN SERIES, BOOK 1: How to build up to 50 pounds of muscle the natural way. To order, contact Weider Mail Order on 01423 877052.
LOU FERRIGNO
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The UKBFF British Championships, the highlight of the year,
are upon us. With this year’s competition due to take place in Harrogate on October 19th and 20th, just after this edition came out, we thought we’d test your knowledge of the big event. So here’s a quiz to find out how much you know about the contest and its champions since the turn of the century. We have split the questions into four categories— easy, moderate, hard and a picture round. There are 10 questions in each round and you get one point for every correct answer so the maximum score is 40.We also list the men and Women Who have made history since 2000.By John Plummer
EASY1 Who was last year’s overall British
champion?2 In which weight class did he compete?3 Which city hosted last year’s British
Championships?4 Which city hosted the finals for many
years before 2012?5 Who was last year’s bodyfitness
champion?6 Which man, who is now an IFBB pro, won
the super-heavyweights in 2012?7 How many classic height classes were
there last year?8 In which country was 2007 overall champ
Flex Lewis born? 9 Who won the open class at the IFBB pro
show that accompanied last year’s British finals?
10 Who is this man pictured Winning last year’s lightWeight title?
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MODERATE1 Who beat Flex Lewis in the overall
posedown in 2006?2 Who was the first British classic champion?3 Which year was the super-heavyweight
class introduced?4 Where was the last qualifier for this year’s
British Championships due to be held?
5 Which former Vogue coVer model, pictured here, finished in the top six in last year’s bikini fitness?
6 What made ricky Welling’s Victory in 2002 all the more remarkable?
7 this bodybuilder Went on to promote the british grand prix. name him.
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8 Who is this shy and retiring competitor?
9 in 2006 this Woman broke Joanna thomas’ record for being the youngest female champion. Who is she?
10 this remarkable Woman became a three-time british fitness champion in her 50s. name her.
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HARD1 Who was the last middleweight to win the
overall title?2 How many times did Zack Khan finish
runner-up?
3 Which former judge is seen here Winning the 2004 middleWeight title?
4 Who finished runner-up to Flex Lewis in the juniors in 2004?
5 Who won a British over-40s title this century to go with the junior one he won last century?
6 Which two women tied for the British fitness title in 2002? (Half a point each)
7 Who won the first men’s physique qualifier staged in the UK?
8 Who won the first bikini qualifier held in this country?
10 this man, seen here finishing fifth in the heavyWeights in 2004, Went on to Win an ifBB pro shoW. Who is he?
9 one of the Biggest men ever to compete at the British championships – Who is he?
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OVERALL BRITISH CHAMPIONS THIS CENTURYMen2000 Mike King2001 Mark Harris2002 Ricky Welling2003 Karl Tierney 2004 Paul George 2005 Paul Delahaye 2006 Troy Brown 2007 Flex Lewis 2008 James Llewellin 2009 Zack Khan 2010 Alvin Small2011 Cecil Croasdaile 2012 Anth Bailes WoMen2000 Anita Hibberd2001 Karen Marillier2002 Tereska Browning2003 Becky Garrigan2004 Wendy McCready2005 Karen Spencer2006 Michelle Jones2007 Venetia Gloux2008 Michelle Jones2009 Xyleese Burford2010 Lisa Cross2011 Rene Campbell2012 Rosie Harte BODYFITNESS CHAMPIONS2003 Gemma Williams2004 Ronnie Blewitt2005 Carmen Knights2006 Claire McKee 2007 Shalmieno Paper2008 Louise Rogers2009 Maxine Cook2010 Maxine Cook2011 Renata Sulekaite2012 Nina RossAnsWers
easy 1 Anth Bailes
2 Heavyweight
3 Manchester
4 Nottingham
5 Nina Ross
6 Darren Ball
7 Two
8 Wales
9 Shawn Rhoden
10 Joel Wright
Moderate 1 Troy Brown
2 Sean Ferguson
3 2009
4 Leamington Spa
5 Emma Blocksage (also
known as Emma B)
6 Ricky is blind
7 Simon Fan
8 Robbie Anchant
9 Michelle Jones
10 Irina Cotton
Hard1 James Llewellin
2 Four
3 Paul Thomas
4 Darren Gumbs
5 Steve Avery
6 Lynsey Beattie and
Nicole Scott (nee Pitcher)
7 Alex Edwards
8 Michelle Brannan
9 Dean McTernan
10 Marius Dohne
Picture round: 1 Barney DuPlessis
2 Paul George
3 Shaun Joseph-Tavernier
4 Zack Khan
5 Ian Morgan
6 Walter O’Malley
7 Cavan Darby
8 Clare Taubman
9 Carmen Knights
10 Claire McKee
rAting0-10 Lightweight, baby
10-20 Train harder
20-30 Muscle brain
30-40 You should be working for FLeX
6
7
8
9
10
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INTENS ITY THE AGE OF
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Dorian Yates DominateD boDYbuilDing in the 1990s. These are The Training philosophies and specifics ThaT seT him aparT and propelled his rule.By Julian schmidT // phoTographs By chris lund and Kevin horTon
INTENS ITY
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Machine pressYates liked the Hammer Strength line of machines because it allowed him to get the effect of free weights while reducing the risk of injury.
“Let a man in a garret but burn with enough intensity, and he will set fire to the world,” wrote French journalist and pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in 23 B.D. (Before Dorian), perhaps heralding the coming of a certain bodybuilder who would render his sport forever changed. Dorian Yates would prove to be a bringer of fire, leading man into a new epoch of mental and physical might.
Before Dorian, bodybuilding was a prisoner of its physical brickwork: you performed a prescribed number of sets, reps, and exercises, or you were sent home from the gym. Yates turned that concept on its head, liberating workouts from their finite arithmetic and placing them in the infinite dimension of man’s imagination and will.
So revolutionary was Yates’ training that it’s still regarded with scepticism by many of today’s bodybuilders. He was, and still is, a mythic creature who keeps us all in awe—the singular icon of the eponymous ’90s, known as the “Dorian decade”, whose six Mr Olympia titles pale in the shadow of his candescent intensity.
In his effort to articulate his eerie faculties, all he could say was, “Don’t try what I do until you’ve had several years of training experience. Even then, don’t copy what I do—you have to find what works best for you.”
What Yates was trying to tell us was that he trained more to develop intensity than to develop muscle. The former is preeminent—both necessary and sufficient for the latter. But, more importantly, intensity is a function of mental strength in the form of concentration, willpower, and comprehension of the manifold factors that affect muscle growth.
To describe Yates’ brand of intensity as “mindmuscle connection” is like trying to describe Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8 as “notes”. Yates was able to push himself further than any bodybuilder in history to explore the nature and limits of his intensity, and in so doing, he alone fully
grasped one of the most basic laws of the natural order: how to produce the maximum effect from the minimum cause. Through every rep, his analytical mind was at work, comparing stresses and discarding those that fell short of optimum muscle production, the entire quest leading him to the metaphysics of training.
Distinguishing Yates’ approach was the attitude not of a chestbeating troglodyte, but of a bookish nerd, whose theoretical knowledge is so thorough that his practical application yields immediate success. “I never adopted a hitandmiss policy,” he’s fond of saying. Before he took his first workout, he sourced every available piece of literature he
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ShrugYates may have eschewed volume, but he didn’t hesitate to use heavy weights. Sets of bar-bending shrugs were the norm in his shoulder workouts.
could find on bodybuilding and physiology. Then, by testing in his gym lab the theories of strength and muscle growth, he concocted two principles that revolution-ised body building and gave us what is known as Dorian’s Heavy-Duty System: (1) maximum muscular response is obtained through the shock of brief, high-intensity training; and (2) muscular growth occurs only after recuperation.
Yates credits the late Mike Mentzer’s radical interpretation of this reasoning as inspiration, but Yates is a vanguard in his own right, having proved that no training system is universally applicable, but, instead, should be modified to one’s personal characteristics. “Mentzer argued that as long as you execute a full range of motion,” he explains, “you can reduce workouts to one set per body part; but I believe a variety of exercises is needed to stress different aspects of a particular muscle. For example, if I didn’t do hack squats and relied only on leg presses, leg extensions, and Smith machine squats, I’d lose the sweep to my outer thigh; and if all I did for back was chins, I’d maintain good upper lats but lack density in my middle and lower back. I believe you can make great gains with one set per exercise, but you need to do a variety of exercises per body part to ensure total development.”
Even so, Yates barely deviated from the single-set principle. The major exercise for each body part would get just one, or, at the most, two warm-up sets before his single maximum set. The only exception was for chest, where he would precede his final set with three warm-up sets (prudent, consider-ing the amount of weight he’d press and the vulnerability of the joints in that area). Many following exercises got no warm-up sets (“I’m already warmed up from that first exercise,” he’d say). Instead, he dived head first into what he calls his “final, all-out set”, which was the crux of his Heavy-Duty System.
That set remains indescribable for the rest of us. It resides only in Yates’ comprehension of “intensity”. Only he has been able, by exceptional force of will, to push his body far enough beyond absolute fatigue to give the terms “final” and “all-out” any meaning. His attempt to describe the experience is sincere but also typical of his understatement: “It must be stressed that the one final, all-out set I do takes me to the very limit of my capabilities. For example, for chest, one of my preferred movements is the incline barbell press. After two or three warm-up sets of six to 12 reps each, I load up the bar and grind out six reps to failure. Without stopping, my training partner then helps me keep it going
with two or three forced reps, again to failure; but the set is still not finished. He’ll then assist me with another three or four rest/pause or negative reps, until the bar absolutely will not move.
“One set at that extreme intensity does the muscle-building job. For anyone trying this system, if you feel you can attempt a second set, then you couldn’t have been pulling out all the stops during the first set. It might be thought that a reduction to a workload of one set per exercise is a radical change, but it wasn’t for me, because I’ve never been a believer in volume work.
“The insurmountable question I’ve always had about doing even as few as three sets per exercise is: how can you avoid pacing yourself? You’re bound to hold back on sets one and two to make sure there’s enough left in the tank for set three. Once I learned how to do one final, all-out set, I wondered how I managed to avoid the pacing dilemma when I was doing two sets per movement.”
Yates illustrates the pacing problem by comparing a sprinter and a marathon runner. How long can you maintain an all-out sprint before you’re forced to jog? The answer: not very long. If you do three sets, it is physiologi-cally impossible to sprint all-out each set. Even if you were able to maintain 100% effort throughout three sets, the effect would be detrimental—your body would be so depleted that you’d be spending more time recovering from your workouts than growing.
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DAY 1Delts eXeRCIse sets RePs seAteD Dumbbell PRess 1* 12 1* 10 1 6–8
Dumbbell lAteRAl RAIse 1* 10 1 6–8
One-ARm CAble lAteRAl RAIse 1 8–10
tRAPs eXeRCIse sets RePs Dumbbell shRug 1* 12 1 8–10
DORIAn YAtes’ heAVY-DutY ROutIne
tRICePs eXeRCIse sets RePs CAble PRessDOwn 1* 12 1* 10 1 6–8
lYIng eZ-bAR eXtensIOn 1* 10 1 6–8
One-ARm mAChIne eXtensIOn 1 6–8
Abs eXeRCIse sets RePs ROmAn-ChAIR sIt-uP 1 20
CRunCh 1 20
ReVeRse CRunCh 1 10
*Denotes warm-up sets performed at 50–70% capacity.
“One set at ExtrEmE intEnsity dOes the muscle-building jOb.”
Dumbbell CuRlYates’ arms were as thick as some men’s thighs. Strict form and sets that pushed past the point of fail-ure were his “secret”.
Intensity, alas, is only one half of Dorian’s Heavy-Duty whole. The other half is recuperation. And the two are true moieties: insufficient recuperation impedes intensity, and insufficient intensity impedes growth. “Rest periods between sets are as long as I feel is required,” he unabashedly admits. “Many bodybuilders think training is 50% aerobic and 50% anaerobic. That is a mistake. They don’t rest enough between sets; their bodies are not able to regenerate enough energy to exhaust that muscle to absolute fatigue, which is the point at which optimal muscle growth begins.
“I perform a set with 100% energy to 100% failure—then beyond, to 100% fatigue—and I won’t do another set until I feel that the muscles have recuperated 100%. When I take leg presses to total fatigue, I know from experience that it’s likely to be at least five or six minutes before I’ll be able to even think about what my name or address is, let alone do another set.”
Yates’ Occam’s razor approach to training did not result in an overnight conversion. For an entire decade, he experimented at gradually shaving away inefficiencies and honing a sharper edge to his intensity. From 1983 until 1986, he used a split routine. At first, he trained four times a week, averaging three heavy sets of eight reps per exercise, but he fell into bed at night tired and stressed. “I was obviously doing too much,” he confesses. Revising his schedule to every other day also proved too ambitious, so he changed it again, settling on three days a week, so that over a 14-day period, he worked each half of his body three times. Again, he fell short of peak recovery, so he trained every other day, using three exercises of two max sets each per body part.
Time and again, he experimented with various volume reductions and discov-ered that, with each reduction, he improved in both strength and muscular-ity. The intensity/volume equation was clarifying itself as a constant: the more intensely he trained, the stronger he grew, and the less volume was required. Not until 1992 did Yates feel that his
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DAY 2BAck EXERcISE SETS REPS HAmmER PullDown 1* 12 (REvERSE gRIP) 1* 10 1 6–8 — or—
mAcHInE PullovER 1* 12 (AlTERnATE EAcH woRkouT) 1* 10 1 6–8
BARBEll Row 1* 10 1 6–8
onE-ARm HAmmER Row 1 6-8
SEATED cABlE Row (ovERHAnD gRIP) 1 6–8
REAR-DElT HAmmER 1 6–8 STREngTH FlYE
BEnTovER lATERAl RAISE 1 6–8
BAck EXTEnSIon 1 6–8
DEADlIFT 1* 8 1 6–8
* Denotes warm-up sets performed at 50–70% capacity.
DAY 3: REST “I perform a set wIth 100% energy to 100% faIlure— then beyond to 100% fatigue.”
cABlE lATERAl RAISEShoulders and triceps were trained together in Yates’ first workout of the week.
process had reached the sweet spot of simplicity, where he could apply the “one all-out set” principle in its quintessence to a consistent, seven-day regime.
Shoulders and triceps came first, on Day 1, affording him full power the next day for back. While he wasn’t overtrained from that two-day series, he needed a day’s rest before returning for an all-out attack on chest and biceps.
To call Yates’ leg session (his fourth training day) a body-part workout fails to accord it the awe it deserves: it was a life-sucking, flesh-frying torture that required him to insert a rest day both before and after. That, however, was as complicated as it got. This final iteration of his programme had a body-part workout comprising only two to four exercises, with one all-out set per exercise. No workout lasted more than an hour, and most were only 45 minutes.
From then on, Yates was off into a future that was his alone, creating a margin between him and the also-rans that expanded like the Hubble constant. Though in his later years he took the stage with a body that brandished battle ribbons of freshly severed muscles and sundered tendons—the price of his never-say-die gym attack—no one could ever hope to close the gap on Dorian Yates’ armour-layered muscularity. FlEX
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DAY 4 Chest eXeRCIse sets RePs InClIne BARBell PRess 1* 12 1* 10 1* 6–8 1 6
MAChIne seAteD PRess 1* 10 1 6–8
InClIne DuMBBell FlYe 1* 10 1 8
CABle CRossoveR 1 8–10
BICePs eXeRCIse sets RePs InClIne DuMBBell CuRl 1* 10 1 6–8
stAnDIng eZ-BAR CuRl 1* 10 1 6–8
PReACheR MAChIne CuRl 1 6–8
ABs eXeRCIse sets RePs RoMAn-ChAIR sIt-uP 1 20
CRunCh 2 20
ReveRse CRunCh 2 20
*Denotes warm-up sets performed at 50–70% capacity.
DAY 5: Rest
DAY 6 legs eXeRCIse sets RePs leg eXtensIon 1* 15 1* 12 1 10–12
leg PRess 1* 12 1* 12 1 10–12
hACk squAt 1* 12 1 8–10
lYIng leg CuRl 1* 8–10 1 8–10
stIFF-leg DeADlIFt 1 10
sIngle-leg CuRl 1 8–10
CAlves eXeRCIse sets RePs stAnDIng CAlF RAIse 1* 10–12 1 10–12
seAteD CAlF RAIse 1 10–12
*Denotes warm-up sets performed at 50–70% capacity.
DAY 7: Rest 116 FLEX
Machine shrugMachines are perfect for Yates’ brand of all-out training, allowing you to push to failure with less risk of tweaking a muscle or joint.
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OPTIMAL CAFFEINE DOSING
training tips for your next workout
Caffeine has been found to increase alertness via several biochemical pathways, primarily by directly
inhibiting phosphodiesterases and increasing cyclic AMP. In addition, caffeine inhibits adenosine receptors and stimulates adrenaline release. Adenosine is primarily an inhibitory chemical; caffeine blocks the actions of adenosine. A recent study on cats—renowned sleepers—pinpointed one arousal network and confirmed that adenosine is a natural sleep inducer. The scientists found that natural concentrations of adenosine built up in parts of the brain system during the cats’ waking periods and caused them to fall sleep. Caffeine works by binding to these adenosine receptors, thereby keeping adenosine from binding with its receptor. Adenosine also inhibits the release of most brain excitatory neurotransmitters—
particularly dopamine—and may reduce dopamine synthesis. Decreases in dopamine have been linked to fatigue during exercise.
Caffeine increases performance in the gym—but what’s the optimal dosage? Scientists had volunteers do exercises against four incremental loads (25%, 50%, 75%, and 90% 1RM) and participate in a test in which cycling peak-power output was measured using a four-second inertial-load test in a randomised, double-blind, crossover experiment. Subjects ingested either a placebo or caffeine at dosages of 3 mg/kg body weight, 6mg/kg body weight, or 9 mg/kg body weight (for the record, 9 mg/per kg of body weight is the equivalent of five to six regular-size cups of drip-percolated coffee, or about 693 mg of caffeine).
The good news is that caffeine produced ergogenic effects at all dosages. All the subjects’
perceptions of performance and vigour increased five to seven times above placebo during the 3 mg and 6 mg caffeine trials (38% and 54%, respectively). Those in the 9 mg/kg body-weight trial had the highest increase in perception of performance and vigour or “activeness” (62% and 54%). The bad news is that the highest dose of caffeine (9 mg/kg of body weight) was associated with many side effects, including increased heart rate, gastrointestinal distress, inability to sleep, and anxiety.
Also, remember that higher doses of caffeine can cause increased levels of cortisol, so 3–6 mg/kg of body weight seems to be the reasonable amount. So, take small doses of caffeine, around the 200 mg mark, and find a dosage you can tolerate without having the unwanted side effects.
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■ Few of us are able to spend all day just training, due to the responsibilities of travel, work, and family. Here’s the good news: new research suggests that you can burn more calories in the gym with shorter, more intense workouts versus longer workouts. Dorian Yates once said, “The most common misconception that people have is that I spend all day in the gym. I normally spend 45 minutes to an hour working out.” Researchers took trained men and had them perform a traditional workout doing four sets of eight different exercises (bench press, leg press, leg curl, seated row, military press, biceps curl, triceps extension, and sit-up). A second group performed high-intensity training, using heavier weights and lower reps. The high- intensity workout was much shorter. The traditional workout took 52 minutes to complete, whereas the high-intensity workout took 22 minutes. They measured the men’s metabolic rate on two separate occasions, once before the workout and then again 22 hours after it was finished. At the end of the study, training volume was much higher for the traditional resistance- training group (17,273 pounds vs. 8,536 pounds). When metabolic rate was measured 22 hours after traditional training, resting energy expenditure was about 100 calories higher than normal, whereas resting metabolism rose by more than 450 calories in the high-intensity training group. Furthermore, high-intensity training increased the rate at which fat was being oxidised to a greater extent than traditional training. The greater post-exercise muscle damage that occurred during high- intensity training resulted in greater energy
expenditure for muscle tissue
repair and protein synthesis that could contribute to greater metabolic energy expendi-
ture after training.
Burn, BaBy, Burn!
Most bodybuilders include stiff-leg deadlifts in their hamstrings routine but wouldn’t consider deadlifts a hamstring exercise. Researchers examined hamstring
and lower-back activation from both versions. The researchers discovered that deadlifts activated the quadriceps more, whereas the stiff-leg deadlifts activated more of the calf muscle (i.e., medial gastrocnemius). The really interesting finding was that there was no difference in hamstring activation between deadlifts and stiff-legged deadlifts.
ARE Stiff-leg DeaDliftS BEst foR HAmstRings?
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If you’ve ever seen Neil Hill train someone, you know that he slaughters his clients with his Y3T training
system, but rest periods are fairly short, typically around 60 seconds. New research suggests that resting less between sets increases strength. The researchers had resistance-trained men perform a 12-week study; the control group performed a traditional resistance-training programme with four sets and 120-second rest periods whereas the other group performed eights sets of five with 60-second
rest periods. Before and after the 12-week programme and at Weeks 4 and 8 the researchers measured body composition, took muscle biopsies, and measured strength and power output. At the end of
the 12-week programme, the 60-second rest-period programme produced greater gains in bench press and squat strength.
There were equal changes in muscle mass between the two groups. This means you can get in and out of the gym faster with more impressive gains in strength by resting less between sets.
Shorter reSt Adds strength
■ There has been much debate on how aerobic exercise can impact on muscle mass. Studies have found that resistance exercise and aerobic exercise elicit different gene responses in muscle. Researchers wanted to explore the effects of different types of exercise on the AMPK and mTORC1 signalling pathways in human skeletal muscle. AMPK increases cellular energy levels by inhibiting anabolic pathways and stimulating catabolic pathways. On the other hand, mTOR stimulates anabolic pathways, including insulin, growth factors (such as IGF-1), and amino acids. The researchers divided the subjects into three groups: a strength-training group, an endurance-training group, and a control group. The endurance-training group performed 10 weeks of stationary cycling composed of three sessions per week with Session 1 involving
30–45 minutes at 60–75% of maximum power output. Session 2 involved two intervals of 20 minutes at 70—80% of maximum power output with five minutes of light cycling in between, and Session 3 involved eight four-minute intervals at 80—90% of maximum power output. The resistance-training group carried out a conventional progressive overload training programme, comprising three leg exercises performed for 3–5 sets of 4–6 reps to failure with two to three minutes’ rest between sets. The researchers reported that AMPK (i.e., catabolic pathway) increased by 44% in response to endurance training and 10% in response to strength training. The mTOR pathway increased by 91% in the resistance-training protocol along with several other anabolic pathways. So both aerobic exercise and strength training led to the activation of
the catabolic pathway AMPK, but resistance exercise was the only exercise component that led to the exclusive activation of anabolic pathways. So doing cardio by itself can lead to a greater activation of catabolic pathways, but this study doesn’t address the question of whether combining cardio and strength training inhibits muscle growth, which leads to the next study. Researchers had subjects perform two trials, one involving only resistance training and the other involving both resistance and endurance training. At the end of the study, resistance exercise seemed to provide a protective effect, mTOR increased in both trials, and there was no significant difference between trials. So the good news is that when endurance exercise is performed directly after resistance exercise, the mTOR anabolic pathway is not blunted.
Cardio Conundrum
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“The back is a complex muscle group, so I concentrate on details and on how the muscles tie together.”
“I go up to 300 pounds on seated cable rows. I try to get a maximum stretch during each rep to really pull out the lower lat area.”
“I like doing chins first and with
different grips, because this really warms up the
various back muscles and
stretches them out.”
Who would imagine that an unknown bodybuilder who finished in double digits in his
pro debut could make the cover of FLEX? That’s what happened when Joel Stubbs landed on our cover after placing 12th in the 2005 Europa Super Show. Seeing Stubbs unfurl his rear-lat spread at that show became one of those rare moments when even a jaded reporter like yours truly went slack-jawed. An impromptu photo shoot at Metroflex Gym was hastily organised for the next day. And a few months later, Stubbs’ rear view appeared on our cover with the provocative question: “Best Back Ever?”
Standing 6'3" and weighing more than 300
pounds in the off-season, the then-37-year-old Stubbs was a full-time pilot for Bahamasair. Stubbs had torn the tendons in both knees playing basketball, so his long legs dramatically trailed his upper half and grounded his contest placings. In his 16 open pro shows between 2005 and 2010, he made only two posedowns.
We answered our own question when FLEX ranked the best backs of all-time and placed Ronnie Coleman No. 1 and Dorian Yates second, ahead of Stubbs (third). The two winners of a combined 14 Sandows had thicker backs than Stubbs. Still, neither legend had a wider rear-lat spread than the flag-like pose Joel Stubbs unfurled in 2005. Nobody ever has. FLEX
LIGHT DAY
EXERCISE SETS REPS
Pull-up (overhand) 2 10
Pull-up (parallel) 2 10
Pull-up (underhand) 2 10
T-bar Row 4–5 12–15
Seated Cable Row 4–5 15
Pulldown (overhand) 4 15
Pulldown (underhand) 4 15
Back Extension 4 15
Joel StubbSHow a Bahamian airline pilot built the world’s widest wings
STUBBS ON BACK TRAINING
n In the off-season, Stubbs alternated between a heavy workout one week and a light workout the next week. For the final month before a contest, he did both weekly.
“On barbell rows, I’ll usually do some sets underhand and some overhand. I get a little better squeeze under-hand and a little better stretch overhand.”
HEAVY DAY
EXERCISE SETS REPS
Pull-up (overhand) 2 10
Pull-up (parallel) 2 10
Pull-up (underhand) 2 10
Deadlift 5–6 15–6
Barbell Row 4 10–12
One-arm Dumbbell Row 4 10–12
Back Extension 4 15
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by GREG MERRITT
STUBBS’BACK ROUTINE
Stubbs played basketball for Florida
Technical College.
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Many readers of FLEX may find this hard to believe, but some of the top-ranked bodybuilders
in the world have a hard time eating. Eating six to eight meals a day can be tough if you don’t have the appetite. Some top trainers recommend cardio to stimulate the appetite. Researchers wanted to investigate whether carbohydrate or fat oxidation during exercise had an effect on compensatory post-exercise eating. The researchers tested the subjects in two
FEEDING THE BEAST
n According to a new study, when researchers disrupted the normal eating patterns of mice, they became fat without eating additional calories. Mice normally sleep during the day and feed at night, but researchers disrupted the master gene clock for sleep and caused the reverse—mice ate during the day and slept at night. Basically,
they disrupted the brain to favour food consumption at an inappropriate time of intake. Interestingly, the mice became obese without increased calorie intake. When the researchers examined blood markers of fatty acids, levels of EPA and DHA were low in both the plasma and in the hypothalamus at the time of inappropriate feeding. So
how do you fix a “broken” fat clock?” The researchers found that eicosapen-taenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) were able to restore the hypothalamus to normal feeding patterns. The key finding is that EPA and DHA (commonly found in fish oil) can lead to long-term weight regulation and fat loss.
IT’S NOT JUST WHAT YOU EAT, BUT WHEN YOU EAT IT
conditions: an exercise condition and a non-exercise control condition following an overnight fast. The exercise condition involved a cycling session at around 70% of maximum heart rate, designed to expend 400 calories and the non-exercise condition involved a time-matched period of rest. There was a variable response to eating after cardio with some of the subjects not feeling hungry while others increased their post-exercise calorie consumption. When the researchers examined what made the
subjects eat after exercise, it was the amount of burned carbs that stimulated appetite.. The researchers reported that carbohydrate oxidation during the exercise phase was positively associated with energy intake post-exercise.
For bodybuilders looking to increase their appetite, it seems that cardio exercise at a moderate to high intensity (70% or greater) leads to an increase in post-exercise feeding.
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ANOTHER CREATINE BENEFIT
n For bodybuilders who want to pack on size, two supplements have been clinically proven to increase muscle mass and strength: whey protein and creatine. In a 10-week, single-blind, randomised study, 17 resistance-trained males were matched for strength and placed in one of two groups: (1) a group that
consumed a supplement containing protein, creatine, and glucose immediately before and after
a workout or (2) a group that
consumed the same supplement in the morning before breakfast and late evening each training day. Findings indicate that after 10 weeks of training, supplementation before and after each workout resulted in significantly greater improvements in strength and lean body mass with a decrease in body fat percentage compared with those who took a supplement in the morning and late evening. The authors concluded that a whey protein/creatine/carbohy-drate supplement may enhance the desired changes from strength training, when taken immediately before and after a workout session.
PACK ON THE SIZEHOW A CREA TINE/ WHEY COMBO CAN HELP
Creatine supplements are popular among bodybuilders and competitive athletes. Creatine increases lean muscle mass by
boosting intracellular water content, and studies have shown that creatine boosts the activity of satellite cells, which increases the potential for growth of muscle fibres and also aids in muscle recuperation. Recent research shows that creatine supplementation can also have a beneficial effect on cognitive performance. This is probably because creatine monohydrate supplementation results in significant increases in creatine concentrations in the brain. Subjects were divided into a creatine group and a
placebo group. They took 5 grams of creatine monohy-drate or a placebo four times a day for seven days, immediately prior to the experiment. The subjects were sleep-deprived for six, 12, and 24 hours with intermittent exercise. The researchers found that at 24 hours, the group that supplemented with creatine had significantly better performance in respect to random movement generation, choice reaction time, balance, and mood state. The study indicated that creatine can aid in the mental functions of bodybuilders who may be sleep deprived and that creatine not only aids muscle growth, but it may also overcome brain fatigue.
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n Ubiquinol, an active form of CoQ10, supplements have been touted as an anti-ageing supplement and praised for health benefits for those suffering from heart disease, blood pressure, and nervous system challenges. Ubiquinol promotes ATP production in the mitochondria of the cell, and not only helps to support your body’s energy production, but it’s also considered one of
the strongest antioxidants available. Ubiquinol acts to block the actions of free radicals in the cell, which cause damage; removing free radical attacks allows your body to repair and restore health.
In a controlled study, 100 young, well-trained athletes received either 300 mg ubiquinol or a placebo. For six weeks all athletes trained for the 2012 Olympics. Daily supplementation of 300 mg ubiquinol significantly enhanced physical performance, measured as maximum power output, by 2.5% versus the placebo. Bodybuilders should consider adding ubiquinol to their supplement stack for its ability to increase peak power and also to prevent cell damage. FLEX
BOOSTS PEAK POWER
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As you probably already know, most nitric oxide (NO)
boosters use some form of the amino acid citrulline. Citrulline is converted to arginine in the body, which is then converted to NO. Citrulline is not only a powerful NO booster but it also delays fatigue and drives up energy levels. Citrulline also aids in the removal of ammonia from the body. In fact, clinical studies confirm that subjects taking citrulline malate experience less fatigue and have higher energy levels. What many bodybuilders may not realise is that citrulline supplementation may also have an anabolic effect via increasing the rate of muscle protein synthesis. Producing NO is one of the most important mecha-nisms necessary for increasing blood flow to muscle tissue. A previous study reported that patients who were given a single citrulline supplementation dose
CITRULLINE TAKEN PRE- WORKOUTANABOLIC
had a 24% rise in nitrogen balance. Additionally, recent research in animals has found that inhibiting NO can decrease overall muscle gains and the growth of capillaries within muscle tissue. It can be hypothesised that reduced capillary growth— limiting the availability of nutrients to muscles—is directly related to decreased muscle development. NO also allows for an increased delivery of anabolic hormones such as testosterone, growth hormone, and insulin-like growth factor-1, which are key for packing on more muscle. So be sure to include a citrulline-based pre-workout supplement for optimal gains in strength and muscle mass.
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BY bryan haycock
FLEX TRAINING
A while back I came across a study looking at different protein feeding patterns. The
researchers had one group drink 10 g of protein every 1.5 hours. Another group drank 20 g every three hours. A third group drank 40 g every six hours. All groups drank the same amount of whey protein (80 g) over the 12-hour study period. In their experiment, the group that drank 20 g every three hours produced the greatest anabolic response.
The results didn’t surprise me because previous studies have
shown 20 g of whey protein to
STAY ANABOLIC
■ Resistance training creates a unique and powerful anabolic signal in muscle tissue. In muscle cells, the ability to perceive and respond to resistance training is called mechanoperception. This process of converting the mechanical forces of lifting a weight into the biochemical signals that lead to hypertrophy is called mechanotransduction. Muscle cells, in turn, are called mechanocytes. This simply means that muscle cells have the ability to sense mechanical load and convert it into biochemical signals that regulate protein synthesis.
You may have heard of capsaicin. It’s the stuff in chilli peppers that makes them hot. I know what you’re thinking; what do chilli peppers have to do with mechano-what-cha-ma-call-it? Nothing, or at least that’s what I thought until I found a recent study looking at the effects of capsaicin on anabolic signalling in muscle cells. The authors were able to show that load-induced activation of the capsaicin receptor (TRPV1) in muscle cells caused an increase in intracellular calcium ion concentrations and that this activated mTOR and promoted muscle hypertrophy. Now, all you need to know about mTOR is that it’s the key signalling pathway responsible for initiating muscle growth. Normally, weight training causes an increase in intracellular calcium ion levels and this contributes to the activation of the mTOR pathway. Before you run out and buy a bunch of cayenne supplements (like I did) be aware that some people can’t stomach cayenne. It can cause the sensation of heartburn that can be quite uncomfortable. Other people have no problem with it.
Until now, no food supplement has been shown to have the ability to mimic weight training in muscle cells. Creatine, as we all know, can support muscle gains by improving cellular energy status as well as activating muscle satellite cells, but this can hardly be considered mimicking weight training. Essential amino acids, and particularly leucine, can trigger protein synthesis, but it doesn’t alter calcium ion levels like weightlifting. Ursolic acid is another recently discovered activator of anabolic pathways in muscle cells. Ursolic acid can increase Akt activity, blood vessel recruitment and autocrine/paracrine IGF-I signalling in muscle cells. This is very impressive yet still slightly different from the mechanism of capsaicin. Finally, even phosphatidic acid which has recently been shown to directly activate mTOR is acting in a different way than capsaicin. The reason I’m trying to point out the differences in the mecha-nisms of each of these nutritional substances is that there may be potential synergism if one were to use each of them strategically together. Creatine, L-leucine, and phosphatidic acid have both been shown independently to improve gains in muscle mass in humans. Ursolic acid, and now capsaicin, have now been shown to increase muscle mass in animals. The plausibility of real anabolic effects in humans is good. FLEX
maximally stimulate protein synthesis. What confused me was the seemingly poor response to 40 g of whey. I would have thought 40 g would’ve produced a strong anabolic response with blood amino acid levels not returning to baseline for six hours. Part of my confusion may have been caused by the authors of this study suggesting some sort of desensitisation to high amino acid levels. This was in line with another theory previously put out by some researchers that there is a “muscle full” effect where despite high levels of amino acids, the cell stops synthesising muscle protein. This did not bode well for folks like me who consume in excess of 300 g of protein per day. Every meal I eat has at least 40 g of protein.
Then a group at Rutgers University in New Jersey changed my thinking on the issue of
desensitisation. They acknowledged that post-meal muscle protein synthesis (MPS) increased rapidly with peak values around 90
minutes and a decline to pre-meal baseline by 180 minutes. The response
of muscle tissue was difficult to explain with rapid initiation of MPS associated
with increased circulating amino acids, however, the decline in MPS at 180 minutes post-meal occurred with plasma leucine levels still elevated and initiation factors still activated. Everything about the cell and its environment was primed for protein synthesis, but by 180 minutes, everything just stops.
The Rutgers researchers were able to show that the problem lies in the cells’ energy status and a process called elongation. Considering that whole body protein turnover accounts for more than one quarter of resting energy expenditure and that assembling amino acids into protein chains (i.e., elongation) accounts for more than 99% of that energy expendi-ture, it’s logical that skeletal muscle would shut down protein synthesis to prevent cellular energy depletion.
Not only did this study identify the problem, it also showed that there is a solution, literally. A solution of leucine and/or carbohydrates given between meals is able to restore the energy status of muscle cells and prolong protein synthesis far beyond 180 minutes. So in order to stay anabolic between big meals, prepare a mixture of 5 g leucine and 15–30 g carbs (e.g., waxy maize) and drink it two hours after your meal. If possible, using BCAAs instead of straight leucine may produce a better effect as BCAAs have been shown to deplete during protein synthesis.
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I’d like to take a break from high-rep training and do a strength cycle, but I don’t want to lose any
muscle mass. Got any favourite workouts?You should try the 1–6 Principle, a training method that’s been popular with elite Romanian and Hungarian weightlifters. I first heard about it in 1991 from Romania’s Dragomir Cioroslan, a bronze medallist in the 1984 Olympic Games who went on to become the head weightlifting coach at the U.S. Olympic Training Center. Before getting into this workout, consider that by performing only higher reps, you will not develop the most powerful fast-twitch muscle fibres.
In a peer-reviewed article published in Sports Medicine in 2004, Andrew C. Fry reviewed studies comparing the muscle fibre types of bodybuilders, powerlifters, and Olympic-style weightlifters (those who perform the snatch and the clean and jerk in competition). What Fry found is that weightlifters had the highest percentage of type 2 (high-threshold) fibres when compared with the other two groups, and bodybuilders had the highest percentage of type 1 (low-threshold) fibres. The bottom line is that these muscle fibres can be developed only with heavy weights—more specifically, the heaviest weights you can lift for lower reps.
I’m not suggesting that you can’t build great size by just using higher-rep training protocols.
The 1–6 PrinciPleBreak strength and size barriers with this tried-and-tested method
EXERCISE SETS REPS REST
A1. Close Parallel-grip Chin-up (weighted)
6 1,6,1,6,1,6 120 seconds
A2. Incline Barbell Press 6 1,6,1,6,1,6 120 seconds
B1. Seated Cable Row 4 1,6,1,6 120 seconds
B2. Mid-grip Bench Press 4 1,6,1,6 120 seconds
EXERCISE SETS REPS REST
A1. Back Squat 6 1,6,1,6,1,6 120 seconds
A2. Lying Leg Curl, feet neutral 6 1,6,1,6,1,6 120 seconds
B1. Barbell Lunge 4 6–8 120 seconds
B2. Romanian Deadlift 4 6–8 120 seconds
Rather, I’m saying that you’ll not achieve maximal muscle size for your genetic potential if you don’t occasionally focus on strength. I should add that many elite bodybuilders agree with me. For example, at his prime, two-time Mr Olympia Franco Columbu deadlifted more than the world record, and Ronnie Coleman deadlifted 800 pounds for a double.
Getting back to the 1-6 Principle, it’s a type
of workout system based upon the neurological phenomenon called post-tetanic facilitation (PTF). One of the early researchers in PTF is Dietmar Schmidtbleicher, a German strength physiologist known for his pioneering research in power development. One of the first elite athletes to use PTF was Valeriy Borzov, a Russian sprinter who won gold medals in the 100 m and 200 m sprints at the 1972 Olympics.
n Here are two supersets for the chest and back using the 1–6 Principle. Note that the B exercises have fewer sets, which is necessary to deal with the fatigue that accumulates during the A exercises.
n Now here’s an example of a leg workout using the 1–6 Principle. The first superset uses the 1–6 Principle. The second superset uses a more conventional workout protocol, but again with fewer sets to deal with the fatigue that accumulates during the first superset.
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PTF suggests that a more powerful muscular contraction can be achieved if that contraction is preceded by a strong muscular contraction. The 1–6 Principle is a practical application of this method, using a maximal load to increase the activation of the nervous system before performing sets of higher reps. This effect enables the trainee to use more weight on the higher-rep sets.
With the 1-6 Principle you perform a maximum single repetition (1RM), rest, and then perform 6 reps using as much weight as you can (6RM). The rest period between sets can range from three to 10 minutes, but you can reduce the rest periods if you perform supersets.
Let’s say your best bench press is 220 pounds for 6 reps and 265 for 1 rep. If you perform that 1RM four minutes prior to a 6RM, you’ll probably be able to use 225–230 pounds. In fact, you’ll use more weight on the second and third 6RM series (i.e., waves) in that workout, as follows:
Set 1: 1 rep with 265 poundsSet 2: 6 reps with 220 poundsSet 3: 1 rep with 270 poundsSet 4: 6 reps with 225 poundsSet 5: 1 rep with 272.5 poundsSet 6: 6 reps with 230 pounds
When designing your own 1–6 Principle workouts, you should primarily use exercises that involve large muscle groups, such as squats and presses. Also, because you’re going to be performing a series of 1RM lifts, it’s imperative that you warm up thoroughly. The warm-up should always consist of doing reps with the first pair of exercises listed in the workout. If you’ve warmed up properly, there’s very little need to warm-up for the second pair. Using our workout example, your squat warm-up might be 5 reps x 135 pounds, 3 x 185, 2 x 225, before you start the working sets.
As with any workout system, you need to change the workout when you reach a point of diminishing returns. As a general guideline, four weeks is about the longest period anyone should follow a programme using the 1–6 Principle. Here is one extremely effective training split for a four-week programme emphasising the 1–6 Principle: Day 1, arms; Day 2, legs; Day 3, off; Day 4, chest and back; Day 5, off.
The 1–6 Principle is based on strong science, and for more than two decades I’ve found it especially useful in my work with not only Olympic and professional athletes but also for anyone who wants to shock their muscles into rapid increases in strength and muscle development. Give it a try and you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can increase your functional hypertrophy and power. FLEX
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Dopamine is a neurotransmitter released from the hypothala-mus that blocks the release of
prolactin from the anterior lobe of the pituitary. One of its main functions is to act on the sympathetic nervous system to elicit effects such as: excitement, high blood pressure, motivational energy, and impulsive behaviour. For example, when a male engages in sexual intercourse, he reaches peak dopamine levels while climaxing, then immediately after intense pleasure prolactin floods his system which induces the opposite effects.
When a person is meticulously dieting to achieve extremely low body fat levels, a cascade of effects takes place as fat cells begin to shrink. Neurotransmitters begin to plummet, which affects mood, hunger, and social behaviour. One way to keep dopamine levels consistent while in a calorie deficit is to eat smaller meals more frequently. Eating every 2–3 hours will maintain higher dopamine levels as well as keep blood sugar balanced.
Another great way to boost dopamine levels is to incorporate a cheat day or cheat meal once a week. Implementing this technique will not only boost dopamine levels, but will also increase thyroid output and replenish glycogen stores in muscle tissue. You can also raise dopamine levels through supplementation. Supplementing with the psychoactive substance known as caffeine will temporarily boost dopamine levels and raise energy and alertness. The non-essential amino acid L-tyrosine is a
BY matt porter
FLEX NUTRITION
Dopamine: A Dieter’ssecretWeApon
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precursor to dopamine and also contributes to healthy thyroid levels.
Another precursor to dopamine is Levodopa, which is found in the tropical legume known as velvet bean (Mucuna pruriens). My personal favourite for raising dopamine is nicotine. I prefer chewing Nicorette gum in between meals for potent appetite suppression and for anti-aromatase properties. I only ingest nicotine during the final weeks before competing in a bodybuilding contest when body fat levels are extremely low. I have no problem
ceasing the nicotine usage when my diet is over and have never had any form of withdrawal symptoms.
To summarise, it appears that keeping dopamine levels elevated during prolonged periods of calorie deprivation promotes appetite regulation, improves mood, and increases the ability to endure what it takes to achieve very low body fat levels. FLEX
Matt Porter is a sponsored athlete for truenutrition.com and also an NPC competitor, title holder, contest-prep coach, and nutrition guru.
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FLEX NUTRITION
It’s unthinkable, right? Who would ever have imagined that two
diets with an identical calorie count—one high-carb and one ultra-low-carb—would have such vastly differing results in terms of fat loss and muscle gain. After all, energy-in equals energy-out, and it all gets balanced in the end, regardless of when we train—and when we eat. At least that’s what we’ve been told for decades.
To the “experts”, this is simply an exercise in the first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy is neither created nor destroyed. In other words, the total energy of the system must be the same, before and after—which means that 500 calories of carbs will produce the same result as 500 calories of protein or fat.
The first law of thermodynam-ics, however, doesn’t mention anything about efficiency in terms of how the body converts this food into energy. It also tells us nothing about what happens if more or less of this energy is wasted depending on what types of macronutrients we’re taking in.
Let’s try a Different LawThe second law of thermodynamics is more applicable to the human body, because it allows for the notion of efficiency. Efficiency is a measure of how much work you’re getting done based on the energy you’re putting in. A standard internal combustion engine—the one in your car—is approximately 33% efficient. This means that about a third of the energy you’re
calorie values for carbs, protein, and fat, distinguished between physical fuel values and physiological fuel values.
The physical fuel value is the amount of energy you can get out of food by burning it with oxygen. You throw food in an oven, incinerate it, then record the total amount of heat released. The physiological fuel value is the amount of energy an organism can derive from the fuel, which can be higher or lower than the physical fuel value.
It has been found that the human body, in a growth stage, can get more than 11 calories per gram out of fat—significantly more than the 9 grams listed on most nutrition labels. This is because different activities require different enzymes or other molecules. Different or accelerated avenues of metaboli-sation can produce different amounts of energy, and a calorie of fat is clearly not a calorie of fat. The same concept holds true for protein, as well, and these values don’t match up there, either. About 2% of your ingested calories of fat,
putting in actually does work. You’re losing the rest of it in the form of heat.
This is essentially how your body works. When your diet consists of 60% carbs, your body wastes about two-thirds of the ingested energy as heat. Some of this helps hold our internal temperature constant, but the rest is lost in other ways. Research on efficiency and wasted heat shows that carbs lead the way in this department when they comprise 55% of the diet or greater. Carbs make you efficient. As you’ll soon see, that’s not what you want.
at a Different OctaneWhat happens, however, when we use a different type of fuel? Obviously, the efficiency levels would change, the fuel would burn in different ways, and you’d either increase or decrease your mileage. Add ethanol to a car, and your fuel economy decreases. Add other hydrocarbons, like anti-knocking agents, and it increases.
Try to transfer this logic to the human body, however, and most physique coaches’ eyes glaze over—as though, in 2013, it’s still inconceivable that different ratios of macronutrients can cause different amounts of energy to be wasted in the human body. A calorie, after all, is still a calorie.
The body, however, disagrees, and it obeys the second law of thermodynamics. This means it varies in efficiency based on activity, hormonal status, and the type of fuel we provide. That’s why Wilbur Atwater, who introduced the 4-4-9
7% of carbs, and 30% of protein is wasted as heat whenever you eat.
HOw tHis appLiesIf we take our 60%-carb diet and invert it so a larger percentage of calories now comes from protein, two 2,000-calorie diets are possible: a high-carb version providing 1,850 physiological calories, and a low-carb one that provides 1,700 (accounting for all the heat loss). By swapping things out, we cut 150 usable calories per day, even though we’re still consuming 2,000.
If you love food, but want to drop fat and build mass, being inefficient is a good thing. If you’re inefficient, you can eat more and actually drop fat. You work so hard trying to process your food that it releases a ton of heat, you sweat like a faucet, and your vascularity goes through the ceiling. So stop counting calories and start worrying about your body’s efficiency and inefficiency. It’s a law of physics, and I’ll take the advice of a physicist over an Internet diet guru any day of the week. fLeX
BY JOHn Kiefer
THE CALORIEFALLACYFor fat loss, efficiency is a worst-case scenario
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BY nEIl hIll
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I find that I go through patches where my stomach always feels upset. I get pain in my abdomen and as a result, feel quite lethargic. Any advice?It’s a tough one because blood tests don’t always show intolerances and you don’t always have to be “intolerant” to a food to have these issues you mention. I would suggest keeping a food diary. Log everything you eat, which days, and when. I believe you will soon notice a pattern occurring, high- lighting for you which foods are the culprits. Make sure you have a good digestive enzyme; probiotics may also be of assistance. FlEX
I remember you saying that you had Flex Lewis train his chest every four to five days rather than seven to bring it up. What exactly did you do?Yes I did. It was his worst body part, and we wanted to make it a strong point to win the Olympia 212 Showdown title, which he did! The first workout was either a Week 1, 2, or 3 session based around the Y3T principles. The second workout for his chest focused more on isolation with lots of isometrics, maximal tension with slow rep tempo, and higher reps to force as much blood into the area as possible. It worked!
What are your thoughts on low-volume, high-intensity training, which Dorian Yates and Mike Mentzer made famous? I understand how and why it works. However, my concern is that not everyone is able to train with that intensity. Is it good to get stronger for muscle growth? Absolutely! However, you also have to be realistic. I don’t think it’s an intelligent way to train all of the time. By rotating your weeks as Y3T does, I believe you will achieve more sustainable growth over the long term.
I am an ectomorph with very little body fat or muscle. Would Y3T be good for me to gain much-needed size?Absolutely! I believe you will respond better to Weeks 2 and 3 due to the nature of the workouts (focusing on sarcoplasmic hypertrophy). With that said, I would do Week 1, Week 2, Week 2, Week 3, Week 3, and repeat. Hope this helps, mate.
I cannot get my biceps to grow. I am very clued up on nutrition, and my supple-ment plan is also very comprehensive. Any tips would be much appreciated! Genetics will make it harder to achieve growth in some areas of your physique, that’s often the case. However I don’t believe we can’t make them grow!
I would suggest introducing three- second eccentric contractions (negative
phase) with one-second isometric pauses on each rep. Focus on flushing blood into the biceps with dropsets and giant sets. Over time they will grow.
Why do you recommend free weights over machines?I always say it depends, so while I champion free weights over machines, I still think the latter have their place. The main reason behind choosing free weights is they are more “anabolic”. What I mean by that is that they force more stress upon the body, which in theory will stimulate a greater response, i.e., growth hormone and testosterone production. For compound lifts I always prefer free weights and after that I think some machines are fantastic for isolation work.
I WOULD SUGGEST KEEPING A FOOD DIARY…lOG EVERYThInG YOU EAT, WhICh DAYS AnD WhEn.
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FLEX EXPERT
BY BRIAN SHAW
BUILDING YOUR LOWER-BACK STRENGTH
“What’s the best way to increase lower-back strength?”
This is a question that I’m asked quite often. Fortunately, there are several great ways to do this. Outside of the major multijoint exercises that build tremendous core strength—such as deadlifts and squats—there are several great options to focus on in the gym. These include both isolation exercises that directly target the lower-back muscles and compound movements where the lower back contracts isometrically to stabilise the body.
But before we get into the what and how, let’s quickly go through an anatomy lesson on exactly what muscles you’re working when you train your lower back. The erector spinae are the powerful muscles that stabilise the lower back and allow you to perform extension exercises (when your spine bends backwards). The gluteus maximus muscles are also involved in torso extension, but they’re primarily responsible for hip extension. The difference is the former occurs in a limited range of motion where only the vertebrae are moving, while the latter has a very long range of motion where the movement occurs mostly at the hip joints.
To get the most out of lower- back training, you must be conscious of the difference so you can perform both motions against resistance. This will strengthen your core muscles, as well as build power in the posterior chain (so
the hip and back extensor muscles work together to generate maximum power).
Always try to use correct form on deadlifts and any other exercise that uses the lower back. Remember, there’s a line between increasing strength and risking injury! And the lower back isn’t an area where you want to suffer an injury.
45-DEGREE BACK RAISEDoing this exercise correctly will really isolate your lower back, and it’ll pay off. Be sure to use a full range of motion, moving under control at all times. At the top, squeeze your erectors consciously before lowering back down. Use the amount of resistance necessary to perform 8–12 reps in strict fashion, moving to near failure. Complete three sets.
REVERSE HYPEREXTENSIONSThis exercise isn’t commonly done due to the fact that it’s hard to do without the correct piece of equipment. If you’re lucky enough to have a reverse hyperexten-sion bench in your gym, use it. You’ll know it because it consists of a pad that’s horizontal to the floor that you lie on facedown. You then hang your legs off the edge of the bench with the strap around your feet. (Some have a roller pad that moves.) A big key to this exercise is to not use too much resistance. When the strap is around your feet it is easy to
use the momentum of the weight to do the work. I like to avoid completely relaxing at the top of the movement and then let the weight pull my legs down into a stretched position before I engage my back muscles and raise my legs back to the top. The amount of blood that you’ll get into your lower back with this exercise will be incredible. Do it regularly and watch your lower-back strength increase. Again, I recommend
using the amount of resistance necessary to perform 8–12 reps in strict fashion, moving to near failure. Complete three sets.
BARBELL ROWSWhen done strictly with the upper body almost parallel to the floor, the lower back is required to stabilise during the entire set of reps. Be sure to utilise strict technique and don’t jerk up and down between reps. FLEX
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The GifTUnwrappedPhil HEATH
Pre-workout, use a supplement to boost your muscle pump.
Do most of your sets with reps in the 8–12 range and rest at least 90 seconds between sets.
On the last exercise for a body part, do sevens. These are sets of 10–12 reps with rest periods of only 20–30 seconds between sets.
For sevens, choose an exercise you can do on your own that will maximise your pump. This is usually an isolation exercise with a strong contraction, like cable crossovers for chest or leg extensions for quads.
If possible, use a timer or the second hand on a clock to precisely time your rest periods. Try not to guess, because the key is to go before your body
tells you it’s rested, so the normal body signals don’t apply.
Seven is an arbitrary number. You can do any number of sets in the sequence. I tend to stick to seven, but you don’t have to.
Try to use as much weight on your last set of sevens as you did on your first set. If you slip under eight reps on any set, use lighter weight. FLEX
MR. O TWEETS
■ Taking a cruise boat through the Panama Canal.
■ It was amazing to meet one of the many indigenous communities here in Panama.
■ That feeling of sitting in my car motionless after (training) legs. One step closer to my goal.
I know you’ve been doing FST-7 for years. Can you explain how an average bodybuilder trying to gain size can use it?FST-7 was developed by my trainer/nutritionist Hany Rambod in 2008 to help me and others safely increase the intensity of our workouts. A lot of people get hung up on the name, which stands for Fascia Stretch Training 7, and they think it’s some complicated system that only Mr Olympia can use. It’s true that Hany and I modify a programme for my body, but anyone can benefit from the concept behind FST-7. It’s basically a way of making sure your muscles get a maximum pump to bring in the nutrients they need for recovery and growth.
So you can use it with your regular programme. You probably don’t need to change a lot if your regular programme is on-point. You want to do most of your sets in the 8- to 12-rep range because those are the sets that are going to generate the most growth. The cool thing about sevens—the main technique of FST-7—is you’re still in that growth range of 10–12 reps. You’re not doing crazy-low reps or crazy-high reps. You’re sticking in that middle range. Also, you can do sevens without a training partner. This is great for me because when I’m in Denver I train alone most of the time. So you don’t need someone there to spot you or strip weights or anything like that. You can do it yourself. Here’s what you should know about FST-7.
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Can you give us a sample workout split for the week? For example, do you do biceps and triceps together or split them?
n This is the split I’ve recently started. It was designed by my coach, Dennis James. As you can see, he has me split up legs into two workouts but keep arms together in one workout:
Day 1 – Chest, absDay 2 – Quads, calvesDay 3 – Shoulders, absDay 4 – Back, calvesDay 5 – Biceps, triceps, absDay 6 – Hamstrings, calvesDay 7 – Off
BIG RAMY mamdouh elssbiayWhat’s your supplement intake before and after a training session? Do you take in amino acids, protein, carbs? Also, do you take any supplements during your workout, like glutamine or BCAAs?I eat a meal with protein and carbs about an hour and a half before I hit the gym. Usually I’ll have a 225 gram chicken breast and 100 grams of rice. Just before training, I take my BCAAs along with some simple carbs such as Vitargo, which gives me a lot of energy for a long heavy workout. About halfway through my workout, I take more BCAAs and another scoop of Vitargo. Immediately after the workout I have a shake with 50–60 grams of 100% whey isolate, 10 grams of powdered glutamine, and another two scoops of Vitargo. An hour later I have another large meal with plenty of protein and carbs. I’m very disciplined with my supplement intake because it makes a big difference in the recovery from my intense workouts. You have a narrow 30-minute window after your training session in which your body can replenish its glycogen and also repair the muscle. As with your meals, you need to measure and pack all your supplements and shakes the night before so that you have one less thing to worry about at the gym.
I read that your second child, a daughter, was born on the weekend of the NY Pro. Do you find it hard to balance family and bodybuilding obligations? Does your wife help with your food preparation?Yes, my daughter was born just a couple of hours before I stepped onstage for the night show. I truly wanted to be there, but the opportunity to compete at the NY Pro was important to both me and my family. My wife is 100% supportive in all aspects of my bodybuilding career and she’s been there from Day 1. Being able to come home to my wife and kids helps me stay calm and focus on what really matters in life, so it’s good to have them around as much as possible. I don’t find it hard to balance bodybuilding and family because each one will take priority at different stages in your life. Right now my focus is on my bodybuilding career, which will help our family in the long run. My wife is a fantastic cook, so she helps prepare my food when I’m home in Egypt. When I’m in Kuwait, though, I have to fend for myself!
Every bodybuilder loves a good cheat meal. What’s your favourite cheat food?Without a doubt it’s ice cream! FLEX
142 FleX
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144 FLEX
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Despite your lack of height and all the muscle you carry, you never look blocky. How have you avoided that?Thanks—well, not for the lack of height part but for the never looking blocky part. I think that’s just my shape. I try not to get too overweight in the off-season. A lot of bodybuilders focus on calories, calories, calories, whether it’s good or bad. And once you blow out your waist, it’s tough to get it back. Even just gaining all that weight will change your breathing and stretch your abdomen out, and then you’re not maintaining control over your waistline. The big bellies are something that’s killing the sport. No one wants to see a bodybuilder with a big belly going in and out with every breath. So it’s important to maintain a good shape throughout the year. You can’t blow out your shape and then expect to diet it back in and be where you were before.
Other than that, it’s mostly about your
structure, and that’s mostly about genetics. I’m short, but I don’t have a short-man structure. I have a slim waist and an X-frame. There are things you can do to emphasise this. Work on your side delts more to make your shoulders look wider. Focus on your outer quads to make your legs wider, and this will create more of a contrast with your waist. And then don’t do things that will widen your waist. Avoid weighted oblique training and wear a belt when you do heavy standing lifts. And that comes right back to where we started—don’t blow out your waist. The most important thing to do to avoid looking blocky is to keep your waist as slim as possible.
How do you deal with interruptions during your workouts?That’s tough, because on the one hand working out is not just recreation to me. It’s part of my job. On the other hand, you don’t want people to think you’re an ass if you just ignore them. Luckily, I train at 11 a.m., and the gym is nearly empty then. But what there are then are “active ageing” classes with all these senior citizens. They’re good people, but they want to socialise too much sometimes. Generally, I try to train when there are fewer people in the gym, because I want to stay focused and not get interrupted. FLEX
■ So I broke another piece of equipment. Low pulley row, second rep in, BANG. No injury. Just pissed me off as I had two more sets left!!!
DRAGON TWEETS
■ “In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.” —Michael Jordan
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Shawn RHODEN
Since you’re a Ronnie Coleman Signature Series athlete, have you had any training advice from him that you’ve incorporated into your training regime? The best thing about being a Ronnie Coleman athlete is that I get to pick his brain every day about what it takes to be an eight-time Mr Olympia. I train with Charles Glass, so I tell him the exercises Ronnie recommends
and he incorporates them into my routine to see if they work. The biggest advice Ronnie has given me, though, has been about recovery, not training. Not many people know that after Ronnie’s Olympia victories he always took off 4–6 weeks from training. After a long season, your immune system is low and your joints hurt. I did the same thing at the end of 2012 but it wasn’t planned. When I got
stranded in Prague last October due to Hurricane Sandy, it forced me to take time off. By not lifting at all, my tendons tightened up and my joints felt great. I hit the gym hard, working my way up to 267 pounds, the heaviest I’ve been. I plan to do this every year from now on.
I’ve been training for a few years now and I’m finally
ready to compete onstage. I’m thinking of doing a few local shows before hitting the Nationals. How did you know when you were ready to step on a national stage?I’ve seen a lot of guys move too fast too soon because they listen to their friends at the gym. Just because you win a local show doesn’t mean that you should move on to the national stage. Find a seasoned coach to act as a second set of eyes and give you an honest critique about whether or not you’re ready. Being the biggest or strongest guy in the gym doesn’t mean that you’re going to be the best guy at a national show. And if you step onstage too quickly you’ll only get discouraged. The only time you’ll be ready is when your physique is clearly beyond what your fellow local competi-tors bring to the stage. I was ready when I realised I could no longer fit into the light-heavyweight class in which I’d competed at local shows. I was losing muscle by forcing myself down to 198 pounds—not even being able to eat or drink the day of weigh-ins! At that point, my coach felt it was time to take it to the next level.
Chris Aceto is your nutrition guru, but is there anyone else who gives you an honest critique of your physique or do you just rely on Chris?Competitors often make the mistake of listening to too many people. It gets confusing. If you get advice from someone who doesn’t follow your progression on a daily or weekly basis, they may think you’re flat or off track. When it comes specifically to nutrition, I only listen to Chris. FLEX
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You’ve said you travel between the Netherlands and Curaçao. Why don’t you live in Curaçao year-round? It seems like a paradise!I was born on Curaçao but I was raised in the Netherlands. In 2005, I immigrated back to Curaçao, where I trained by myself and had very little guidance on proper nutrition. After I won the Dutch Championships in 2007, I was introduced to Sibil Peeters (a.k.a. Grandma) and she became my coach and nutrition-ist. At that point I really needed to remain in the Netherlands so that Sibil could track my progress daily and help me get ready for the Arnold Amateur, which I won in 2009 to earn my pro card. During that time, I stayed in Rotterdam with my sister and travelled back and forth between the two places, but it was taking a toll on me. Finally, in December 2012, I decided to move back to Curaçao permanently and train by myself. As you said, it’s truly a paradise. After so many dreary winters in the Netherlands I realised how much I missed the sun, sea, and beaches here. I don’t plan on moving any time soon.
I hate the pop music they play at my gym, so I’m always wearing my headphones to tune it out so I can focus on the weights. What kind of music do you listen to when you work out?I also hate the music they play at my gym. I find it very distracting when I’m trying to train heavy and suddenly I hear some annoying Top 40 dance song. I’m lucky that I train at times when the gym isn’t too crowded, so
they’re nice enough to change the music to something a little more hardcore just for me. When I can’t make it to my normal gym, I just wear my headphones. Since I hate making small talk when I work out, the head-phones also stop people from
bothering me or asking me for training advice. I listen to a lot of different types of music, but what I listen to during my workouts depends on my mood that day. I make a few different mixes for my iPod but I’d say I mostly listen to rap or hip-hop,
but every now and then I’ll mix it up with some ’80s rock.
You’ve mentioned that you sometimes train with your brother. I can’t imagine working out with my brother because we’d drive each other crazy. Is it hard to push each other when you’re related?It’s never hard to push each other because every workout ends up being a friendly (or
sometimes not-so-friendly!) competition. It’s been like
that since we were kids. My younger brother Quincy, who’s also an IFBB pro, always wants to prove that he can lift more than me. I tend to use straps, whereas he has a better forearm grip and refuses to
wear them, so he teases me a lot about that and
challenges me to see how strong I am without straps. If I
do 10 reps of an exercise, he has to prove he’s tougher than me by doing 12 reps. He never seems to get tired no matter how hard the workout. Even though we have our different training styles, we still have fun in the gym and drive each other to complete a tougher workout than we could each do alone. I feel really fortunate to have a brother who’s also a pro bodybuilder with goals similar to mine.
What’s your favourite type of cardio, and how much do you do for a show?For the last few weeks I usually just do 30 minutes on the stationary bike at the gym or I go for a long walk after training. When I was getting ready for the Mr Olympia in 2010, I changed it up a bit. I did a lot of fast walking up and down steep hills, which I’m now convinced gave me better results than the treadmill or bike. FLEX Ja
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EvEn though MY BRothER AnD I hAvE ouR DIffEREnt tRAInIng StYLES, wE StILL hAvE
fun In thE gYM and drivE Each othEr to compLEtE a toughEr workout
than wE couLd Each do aLonE.
the beast roelly winklaar
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1 Blood tests. Hardly any bodybuilders I train do this.
I’m not sure about the majority of my peers, but the ones I know usually go, while my amateur clients have to be forced to go, which is wrong. Guys, if there’s one thing I can insist on being most important for longevity, it’s blood tests. There’s no other way to be able to tell if something is wrong aside from having blood tests done and finding out the actual levels of each organ.
2 Protein intake. As growing bodybuilders, we always
have a high protein intake to make sure we’re feeding the muscle we’re continually tearing down. Yes, this is the way to rebuild, but it’s the way to tear other parts down,too. Meat protein is hard to digest and can also have an impact on kidney function. Take the time to give your body a rest and lower the amount of protein you take in. Drop it by 50% for a few weeks and raise your carb and fat intake to make sure
you’re not going backwards. Remember, when it comes to your kidneys, the detrimental aspect of protein intake isn’t the amount you take in daily, but the amount you take in at one time. So, instead of eating 350 g of meat six times a day, break it down into eight meals and lessen the amount just a little.
3 lose Weight. I know this sounds horrible to most of
you because we’re always trying to grow and none of us wants to lose good, hard-earned weight. That being said, if you’re going to be in this for the long haul, you could be doing your body a real service by giving it a break—from the inside. I’ve seen many doctors in my time, and there’s one common theme they express: bodybuilders aren’t getting sick or passing away due to protein intake, but more so because of body weight. A 300-pound fat person still has a lean body mass of, say, 200 pounds, so his heart has to work only to fuel that 200-pound body. He has his own problems—
but his heart isn’t working as hard as ours. When you’re walking around at 250–290 pounds and carrying around 230–240 pounds or more of muscle, your heart is working overtime. These doctors have all told me that the heart isn’t meant to pump blood to a 290-pound body for an extended period of time. So how do we help our hearts stay healthy while still enjoying bodybuilding? Take breaks. After I finished the Toronto Supershow, I just rested and worked out when I felt like it. I dropped weight and am now much smaller. My body is feeling good and healthy. And I’m not worried it won’t come back, that I won’t make gains—a healthy body will grow faster than a toxic, overworked body.
I know these are things most of us—including me—don’t want to think about, but it’s important that we have this discussion. Ignorance isn’t bliss when it comes to your health, people. Make sure you’re healthy, and don’t avoid the truth, whether it’s good or bad. FleX
gone too soon. r.i.P., ed Van amsterdamn I was just sitting down to write this column when I found out about the death of IFBB pro Ed Van Amsterdam, who passed away from a heart attack on July 5th. Of course this hits home for me because I’m in the same profession, live the same lifestyle, and weigh approximately the same as Ed did.
I don’t want this to turn into a column about my health, but many people online have been asking, “Why is this happening to all the pro bodybuilders?” So I’d like to use my own experiences to explain some of my points.
I had a pancreatic attack earlier this year while I was getting ready for the Toronto Supershow. It taught me a lot about our health as bodybuilders and why we’re getting sick—or passing away—earlier than we’re supposed to. When I got sick I started doing a lot of research and I learned some very important things:
148 FLEX
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Mike Liberatoren Recently, a fan asked a question about the fact that I’m not a big eater in the off-season. Over the years, if you’ve seen my videos or online posts, you’ve probably heard countless times my struggle to get down the amount of food needed in the off-season to make large gains. This has been the major thing that’s held me back— especially when I have no problem eating when pre-contest rolls around.
This fan noticed from recent photos that it looked like I’d actually made some good gains during this last off-season, and wanted to know if I was finally able to eat more food.
Since I noticed that food was a problem in the off-season with a lax diet, but that I got in all my meals with ease—and was
actually hungry—during pre-contest dieting, I knew something wasn’t right. My situation with hunger was just slightly different. Five weeks before the British Grand Prix in 2012, I found out unexpectedly that I had an oesophageal ulcer and a blood clot with it. During the procedure to fix both, the doctors learned that I had a condition called oesophageal oesophagitis. This caused my throat to swell with an inflammation that formed ridges down my
oesophagus. I was told that this was the cause of any and all of my stomach issues, such as indigestion, throwing up, and especially my lack of appetite. The doctor said that, with the inflammation, my oesophagus was the size of a small child’s—and I don’t know many small children who can eat as much food as a professional body-builder. This caused my food to go down slowly and digest slowly, which left me with very little appetite. These issues
didn’t affect me pre-contest because I was eating better and eating less-dense foods that were more easily digested.
Most bodybuilders in pre-contest are counting the minutes till their next meal, so getting the food down usually isn’t a problem—it’s gone by the time they blink. But some have a much harder time with more food off-season and dread the next meal because it’s “just too much”—so they often skip it altogether. FLEX
Here are some tips if you’re having a similar problem. Keep in mind, though, that these suggestions will typically work only when one is just finishing a contest and at the very start of the off-season, not in the middle of one.
n If you stay close to a pre-contest diet—slightly modified, of course—with more clean carbs and clean fats and two to three cheat meals a week, you’re more likely to have a revved-up appetite. Yes, this is different from what we see a lot of guys doing off-season, i.e., eating too many calories, doing little or no cardio, and having too many cheat nights with both food and alcohol. None of that will increase your appetite.
TypicaL prE-conTEsTClean diet + 0–1 cheat meal per week + high- intensity cardio = hungry bodybuilder
TypicaL buLking/oFF-sEasonOverabundance of calories + too many cheats + little to zero cardio = slow, lethargic, not-hungry bodybuilder
As you can imagine, my eating and appetite did increase immensely after fixing my previously unknown problems. Even with an improved ability to eat, though, I still follow my own advice and keep a relatively clean diet all year.
150 FLEX
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I worked my butt off for my last show and I looked great. Only problem was, I couldn’t get a pump backstage. Where did I go wrong, and has this ever happened to you?Hell, yes, this has happened to me—and it sucks to feel like this before you step onstage.
I think the No. 1 cause of this for most people is that they get nervous. When you get nervous, your blood pulls away from your muscles and goes to your internal organs. So if you get too nervous, you can almost bet you won’t get a good pump.
I also think if you’re too dehydrated you can’t get a good pump. Yes, shedding the water under the skin is critical to looking good onstage, but if you take out too much water, your muscles will get flat and you won’t get a pump.
Another reason could be not enough carbs in your body. Carbs help pull water into your muscles so you feel full and get a good pump.
Yes, it’s all a balancing act and there’s no perfect formula, because each time it’s different, and everyone is different. Here’s how I try to keep this from happening. First, I try to have fun or listen to relaxing music so I don’t get nervous. Second, I never completely take out my water—I’m always drinking small amounts. Third, I carb-load and always have food backstage just in case I start to feel flat. I like to have fruit or even a fizzy drink before I step onstage. Hope this helps out, and hope you get a good pump on next time. FLEX
WEEK 1
EXERCISE SETS REPS
Seated Military Press 3 8–10
Standing One-arm Lateral Raise
3 8–10
Barbell Front Raise 3 8–10
Bentover Lateral Raise 3 8–10
Upright Row 3 8–10
Seated Lateral Raise 3 8–10
WEEK 2
EXERCISE SETS REPS
Dumbbell Shoulder Press 3 12–15
Lateral Raise 3 12–15
Seated Dumbbell Front Raise
3 12–15
Cable Rear-delt Flye 3 12–15
Shrug 3 12–15
Seated Lateral Raise 3 12–15
WEEK 3
EXERCISE SETS REPS
Standing Military Press
5 15, 12, 10, 8, 6
Cable Lateral Raise 5 15, 12, 10, 8, 6
Cable Front Raise 5 15, 12, 10, 8, 6
Cable Bentover Lateral Raise
5 15, 12, 10, 8, 6
Cable Upright Row 5 15, 12, 10, 8, 6
■ Shoulders are my favourite body part to train. I have strong shoulders and really like to blast the weight on shoulder day. Here are my workouts.
TRAINING JOURNAL■ Training is going great! I’ve been training for my first 5K race. Some people think that as a bodybuilder this is counterproductive, but it’s not. I haven’t lost any size running. My next show is still up in the air—not sure what I want to do right now. I’m getting good results training, so there’s no need to rush yet. I also wanted to wish my baby girl a happy birthday, as she’s turning 4. Time sure goes by fast. I love my family—they support me and I support them 100%.
SHOULDER TRAINING
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PAK-MAN Ben PAKULSKIn You’ll notice something different the next time I take the stage, and I’m not just talking about better balance, symmetry, and conditioning. I’m also hernia-free!
After my runner-up finish at the Arnold Classic and my top-three placing at the Australian Pro, I decided that, before competing again, my time would best be used by attending to some past injuries. I’ve had an epigastric hernia, which is merely a split in the abdominal wall, for the past 12 years. I finally opted for surgery, and my recovery and progress couldn’t have gone
more smoothly. I’d like to give you all a little insight into the things I did to prepare for the operation, as well as how I incorporated training back into my life following the procedure.
An important aspect of ensuring an operation goes optimally is decreasing inflammation. Prior to the operation, I held off on training and lowered my carbohydrate intake to zero. This, of course, would limit any internal inflammation. Ideally, a patient should also have low body fat to make the processes go more smoothly—both the
operation and the recovery. Although my body fat is in check year-round, it helped even more so that I had recently competed prior to the operation.
I knew I’d be in the hospital for some time. I didn’t want to take any chances, so I made sure I had food delivered to my room that morning. I can’t take any chances with some of that crappy hospital food! When you’re trying to be the best in the world, you need to make sure you’re trying at all times.
Despite the importance of these prerequisites, the most crucial consider-ation for a patient is how he or she will allocate time after surgery. Most hernia operations, mine included, consist of inserting a mesh in the damaged tissue to strengthen the injured area. Many athletes, especially after hernia repair, can rush back into training too soon, which can rip the mended area. You need to allow the wound time to heal. This required me to take a few weeks off from the gym completely.
When I was finally given the OK to return, I made sure to slowly acclimatise my body back into training. During the first two weeks, my training was minimal, both in terms of intensity and volume. The surgeon gave me specific recommendations concerning weight progression. I was advised to not lift anything over “X” amount pounds, and the number would increase over time. Likewise, there was progression in my nutrition. Since my workouts used very light weight and had such low volume (roughly eight working sets per muscle group), my carbohydrate requirements for optimal functioning were much lower. My general progression aimed for about a 25 gram increase each week, until I hit my usual off-season carb intake. As usual, the majority were consumed around my workout.
Regardless of what your training goals are or what aspirations you have outside the gym, it is always important to plan for success. If you take the time to focus on every detail of a particular goal and you’re willing to make the necessary sacrifices, success is not a probability but rather a certainty! FLEX
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PAVE
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KAI’S MOTIVATOR
“You did everYthing?” I ask myself thIs questIon every…
sIngle…day. everY SingLe dAY.
How was your off-season training and diet different this year going into the Mr Olympia?It was a very fruitful off-season. I’ve got to give a shout-out to George Farah. He’s been working with me on my diet. I’d been trying to keep my weight down throughout the off-season. The days of ballooning up to 300 pounds or better—we ain’t doing that these days. I stayed in my best off-season shape ever this year. So I’m getting a chance to be in better shape while doing the guest posings. I can move around more easily and feel more comfortable in my own skin.
I try to be very methodical about my day-to-day training and stay on the nutritional programme that George and I have in place. This is my third year working with him. For the most part, the nutrition programme is the same it was the last two years.
KAI’s CORNER KAI GREENEIt’s really interesting how the journey
towards seeing your dream realised is a continuing educational process. Even as a professional bodybuilder, I’m still learning things every day about my craft. With that in my mind, it’s exciting to be able to do what I do. And I’m very thankful to get that opportunity. So my off-season went very well. I wasn’t as heavy as I was in the past, but make no mistake about it, the scales will betray me sometimes. Still, as long as George says my condition is where I need it to be, I’m comfortable and confident with that.
When I watch your training videos, I notice you doing a lot of full-body stretches and exercises for other body parts. Why do you do all that work for muscles you’re not training that day?
Don’t think of your body as a collection of parts. Your body has to work together as a unit, whether you’re doing a squat or a posing performance or just walking to the store. Before I begin my workout, I do a series of stretches and exercises to warm up and prepare the muscles and tendons for work, but also to work my entire body as a unit and get the blood flowing throughout my whole body.
If you have, for example, a back workout, and in that workout you do only back exercises and back stretches and then the next day you have a chest workout and do only chest exercises and chest stretches, you never bring your muscles together to work cohesively. Your physique becomes just a collection of parts instead of a complete work of art. FLeX
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RE
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BY CHRIS LUND, UK EDITOR SINCE 1985 photos BY CHRIS LUND
ALBERT BECKLESone of the most amazing bodybuilders of all time
When I first began researching this Looking Back article on Britain’s Albert Beckles, I couldn’t believe
my own eyes. I had to tell somebody, so I called Ernie Taylor—I always love to blow his mind!
“Ernie,” I said casually, “for how many years do you think Albert Beckles competed as a world class bodybuilder?”
“Oh, you’ve got me there,” he replied. “About 15 years?”
I couldn’t wait to put the boot in. “How about 27 years?” I said proudly.
“27 years? You must be joking!” he replied, absolutely amazed.
“Well, I’m not,” I said. “His first contest was the 1965 NABBA Mr Universe and his last two contests were the IFBB Chicago Pro Invitational and the IFBB Niagara Falls Pro Invitational in 1992!”
“Wow! That’s truly amazing,” Ernie replied, still gobsmacked.
“Shall I tell you something else?” I continued. “Go on then,” he replied. “Tell me something else!”
“During his illustrious career, Albert Beckles competed in 110 bodybuilding contests!”
This time there was no reply from the other end of the phone. Ernie Taylor was simply too astonished to reply.
“Ernie,” I repeated, “Albert Beckles competed in 110 contests.”
This time, Ernie was just about able to compose himself and in true bodybuilding fashion (only a bodybuilder would see it this way), he exclaimed, “So that means he followed a 12- week pre-contest diet 110 times!”
I was taken aback. “Ernie,” I said, “Are 12-week diets all you guys ever think about when you prepare for a contest?”
“Of course!” he answered without hesitation. “The 12-week diet is absolutely what it’s all about. Have you ever followed one?” he added sarcastically.
“Absolutely not!”
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“Well, there you go then. A 12-week pre-contest diet is like going to hell. Beckles must have gone to hell and back again 110 times!”
“I’ve just thought of something else,” I said.
“What’s that then?” “There were always stories going round
that Albert even stuck to his diet on Christmas Day, so that he could stay ahead of the game when the contest season began.”
“Now that’s dedication for you, mate,” Ernie replied.
I can still remember the first time I saw a photo of Albert Beckles. It was way back in the 1960s, and it was a black and white photograph in Ironman magazine. It was an
incredibly peaked one-arm biceps shot, and I had never seen anything like it in my life. The accompanying article made the astonishing revelation that Albert had built his amazing biceps in only six months of training!
When I got to know him years later, Albert confirmed the Ironman story. “Yeah, that’s right. My biceps grew so fast during the first six months and all I was really doing at that time were barbell curls and reverse close-grip lat pulldowns. I have no idea where my peaked biceps came from.”
Between 1965 and 1971, Albert competed within the NABBA and the AAU bodybuilding organisations. However, in 1971 he figured he would try his luck with the IFBB. He entered and won the 1971 IFBB Mr Universe, which would later become the IFBB World Championships.
He took 1972 off and returned to competition the following year. He entered two shows in 1973—the IFBB Mr Europe and the IFBB Mr Universe—and won them both hands down!
In 1975 Albert entered his first Mr Olympia and placed third in the lightweight class. For the next 17 years Albert Beckles became the most feared and consistently competitive bodybuilder in pro bodybuilding. If Beckles was in the contest, everyone was in trouble because, as they said, Albert took no prisoners, and he was always in shape.
In 1981 Albert entered eleven IFBB pro shows and came second in six of them. (He also won one, placed fourth in one, third in one, and sixth in two.) He personally felt he should have won more, and one day while we
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were having breakfast following one of these contests, he leaned over and asked me, “Why don’t I win more shows? Is it because I live in England and they would rather have Americans winning the big shows?”
For the next hour or so I tried my best to console him, because I didn’t want him to lose heart and retire from bodybuilding. But I agreed with him 100%, because Albert Beckles definitely should have won more of those
shows. He was also not a complainer, however, unlike some bodybuilders. He was a true sportsman who was sharp enough to understand that he was not placing as high as he should have done at many of the top pro shows.
RICH GASPARI
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This is basically what I told him. First of all, because he was a British boy, he needed to be so much better than his US counterparts (which he often was). I then told him that he needed to jazz up his act when he was on
stage, because in real life he was a cool, calm and extremely conservative person. Albert remained thoughtful for quite a while, and then suddenly exclaimed, “You mean I should act like a total wally when I’m on
stage, don’t you?” “Well, not exactly,” I replied. “You just need to connect with the judges and the audience a little more. You already have the muscle, but you always look so serious when you go through your routine. Why not let them know that you’re Albert Beckles, and you’re in great shape, and that you’re very happy about this. The audience and judges will relate to that.”
The following year (1982) was a terrific year for Albert Beckles. He placed second at the Belgium Grand Prix, fourth at the Swedish Grand Prix, and then won the New York Night of Champions. He placed fifth at the Mr Olympia, but won the World Pro Championships.
The new happier, smiling and more confident Albert Beckles was on his way to even more greatness, and one day, the morning after a show, he walked up to me and asked, “So how do you like the teeth then?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I replied.“Well, you told me to look happier on stage,
so I just flashed my teeth, didn’t I?”Albert then flashed his infamous choppers
and you know what? He had a perfect set of large white teeth that would have done any dentist proud.
“Maybe they should have a best choppers round!” I declared.
“Yeah, maybe they should,” he said, heading off to his favourite place after a contest—the hotel restaurant.
In 1983 Albert placed seventh at the Mr Olympia, and the following year he placed fourth, but he won the World Pro Championships, the World Grand Prix, and the Canada Pro Cup.
1985 was a different story and I still feel, even today, that Albert Beckles should have won that Mr Olympia. He was in so much
If Beckles was In the contest, everyone was In trouBle Because, as they saId, Albert took no prisoners, And he wAs AlwAys in shApe
LEE LABRADA
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better muscular shape than the current champ Lee Haney, so I found myself doing something that I had never done before, or indeed since. I went backstage just before the start of the evening show and told Albert that he was without doubt the best bodybuilder in the contest. He had it in the bag because he was in far superior muscular shape and condition to the current Mr Olympia. I told Albert to go out and fight for his life because, as Joe Weider once said, “In bodybuilding you have to be far superior if you want to beat the current champ!” Albert listened carefully, and didn’t say a word. Instead, he went on stage and gave Lee Haney the fight of his life. Unfortunately, Albert Beckles took second to Lee Haney.
One day I said to Albert, “Out of every bodybuilder alive today, I believe that you would survive the best if you were washed up on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe!”
“How do you work that out?” replied Albert.“Well,” I said, “I figure that you have all
the survival instincts needed to stay alive because you have tremendous tolerance and dedication. I also believe that you would even find ways to train while you were alone on this desert island.”
“And exactly how would I do that?” he said, all smiles.
“I think you would find a strong branch and place it between two trees so that you could do all kinds of chins—wide grip, close grip, regular grip and reverse grip—which would give your back and biceps a tremendous workout!”
“What else could I do then?” Albert asked.“If you found some washed-up planks of
wood, I’m sure you could easily knock up a set of parallel dipping bars so that you could train your chest and triceps.”
Albert beckles wAs not A fAn of photo shoots. he did not see the point of them becAuse to his mind, the contest was what it was all about
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Albert had started to laugh out loud now and in between guffaws, he said, “So what do I eat then?”
“Easy!” I replied. “I can just see you collecting mangoes, papayas, coconuts and anything else you can lay your hands on. Oh yes, and I can see you waiting hours just to spear a fish!”
“You know something?” Albert replied. “I always thought you were crazy!”
The trouble was, I believed every word I said! In November 2005, Greg Merritt wrote an
article in FLEX called Top guns: the 20 best arms of all time and the workouts that built them. Naturally Albert Beckles was one of them. Here’s what Greg had to say.
“Albert Beckles didn’t grow his way into our top 20 until he was well past his 40th birthday. At various times, Beckles has claimed birth years of 1930 and 1938, but even if the more recent date is true, it still means he placed second in the 1985 Mr. Olympia at age 47 and
he won his eighth IFBB pro show at 52. Despite high biceps and forearm attachments, evergreen Beckles triumphed with history’s most freaky peaky biceps, coupled with a devastatingly delineated side triceps shot.”
Here’s what Albert told Greg about building his outrageously peaked biceps.
“I like to place special emphasis on the peak contraction, and I often resist supinating until I get very close to contraction. I twist my wrists outwards as far as they can go just as I reach the top of the curl. This creates a tremendous contraction, and I hold it for a second or two.”
ALBERT BECKLES’ BICEPS ROUTINESeated dumbbell curl: 4 sets, 8–10 repsCable curl: 4 sets, 8–10 repsD umbbell concentration curl: 3 sets,
8–10 repsOne-arm cable curl: 3 sets, 8–12 reps.
Albert Beckles was not a fan of photo shoots. He did not see the point of them because to his mind, the contest was what it was all about. Besides, after the show it was time for eating, and I have never seen anyone eat like Albert Beckles, after a contest. Usually, after a contest in the US, he would get up at 4 am, because he couldn’t sleep, and head off to the hotel restaurant to order his favourite breakfast food–cream of wheat–which he devoured, bowl after bowl.
When he was living in London, he would usually be on the evening flight back home the day after the contest, which meant that no training shots could be done. Even when he moved to the US (he has been living in California for many years), you could still never get him to agree to photo shoots. As a result there are not too many non-contest photographs of the great Albert Beckles–one of the most amazing bodybuilders of all time! FLEX
CONTEST CAREER 1965
NABBA Mr Universe, Medium, 3rd1966
NABBA Mr Britain, 5thNABBA Mr Universe, Medium, 6th
1967NABBA Mr Britain, 3rdNABBA Mr Universe, Medium, 1st
1968NABBA Mr Britain, 2nd
1969NABBA Mr Britain, 2ndNABBA Mr Universe, Medium, 3rdIFBB Mr World, Medium, 2nd
1970NABBA Mr Britain, 1st Mr Europe, Medium, 1st & OverallNABBA Mr Universe, Medium, 2nd
1971NABBA Mr Britain, 1st IFBB Mr Universe, Medium, 1st & OverallNABBA Mr Universe, Medium, 1stAAU Mr World, Medium, 1st & OverallAAU Mr World, Most Muscular, 1st
1973IFBB Mr Europe, Medium, 1st & OverallIFBB MR Universe, Medium, 1st
1975Mr Olympia, Lightweight, 3rdIFBB Mr Universe, Medium, 2nd
1977Mr Olympia, Lightweight, 4thMr Olympia, 7th
1978Mr Olympia, Lightweight, 8th
1979IFBB Best in the World, 3rdGrand Prix Pennsylvania, 3rdMr Olympia, Lightweight, 7thIFBB Mr Universe, 2ndIFBB World Pro Championships, 2nd
1980IFBB Mr Universe, 4thIFBB World Pro Championships, 4th
1981Canada Pro Cup, 2ndGrand Prix Belgium, 2ndGrand Prix California, 4thGrand Prix Louisiana, 2ndGrand Prix Massachussets, 2ndGrand Prix New England, 1st Grand Prix Wales, 3rdGrand Prix World Cup, 6thNight of Champions, 2ndProfessional World Cup, 6thWorld Grand Prix, 2nd
1982Grand Prix Belgium, 2ndGrand Prix Sweden, 4thNight of Champions, 1st Mr Olympia, 5thWorld Pro Championships, 1st
1983Grand Prix England, 5thGrand Prix Las Vegas, 3rdGrand Prix Portland, 4th
Grand Prix Sweden, 5thGrand Prix Switzerland, 5thNight of Champions 3rdMr Olympia, 7th
1984Canada Pro Cup, 1st Mr Olympia, 4thWorld Grand Prix, 1st World Pro Championships, 1st
1985Night of Champions, 1st Mr Olympia, 2nd
1986Mr Olympia, 4th
1987Grand Prix France, 4thGrand Prix Germany (2), 6thGrand Prix Germany, 4thMr Olympia, 7thWorld Pro Championships, 3rd
1988Chicago Pro Championships, 4thGrand Prix England, 7thGrand Prix France, 11thGrand Prix Germany, 8thGrand Prix Italy, 8thGrand Prix Spain (2), 8thGrand Prix Spain, 7thNight of Champions, 5thMr Olympia, 15thWorld Pro Championships, 10th
1989Arnold Classic, 7th
Grand Prix England, 9thGrand Prix Finland, 9thGrand Prix France, 9thGrand Prix Holland, 11thGrand Prix Melbourne, 4thGrand Prix Spain (2), 10thGrand Prix Spain, 10thGrand Prix Sweden, 9thGrand Prix US Pro, 4thNight of Champions, 8thMr Olympia, 15thWorld Pro Championships, 4th
1990Arnold Classic, 9thHouston Pro Championships, 11thNiagara Falls Pro Invitational, 12thNight of Champions, Did not place
1991Grand Prix Denmark, 7thGrand Prix England, 7thGrand Prix Finland, 9thGrand Prix Italy, 8thGrand Prix Spain, 9thGrand Prix Switzerland, 8thNiagara Falls Pro Invitational, 1st Night of Champions, 7thMr Olympia, Did not placePittsburgh Pro Invitational, 12thSan Jose Pro Invitational, 5th
1992Chicago Pro Championships, 16thNiagara Falls Pro Invitational, 8th
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BY ERNIE TAYLOR “THE BRITISH PHENOMENON” photos BY chRIs LuNdL
ET
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BENTOVER ROWs WITh TWO duMBBELLs Hi ET,I have seen many photos of Jay Cutler doing bentover rows with two dumbbells lying facedown on an incline bench. I do not have one of these benches in my home gym so is there another way of doing this particular exercise?
Alan London
Hello Alan from London,The exercise you mention, incline bentover rows with two dumbbells, is actually an isolation exercise that’s usually performed after compound back movements. It’s truly an excellent back exercise and I personally think it’s fantastic for giving you that Xmas tree look in your lower back.
If you cannot do this exercise the way Jay does them, then don’t worry. Simply grab two dumbbells and get into the regular bentover row position, keeping your knees bent. From this position pull both dumbbells up just like you would when doing the regular bentover barbell row. You will immediately discover that you can pull the dumbbells up much higher, and when you reach the contracted position, squeeze and tense your lower back for at least two seconds.
When you first start out doing this exercise, use a pair of manageable weights, which will allow you to achieve that incredible contraction in your lower back.
Barbell rows are a great compound back-thickening exercise, but you are limited because the movement comes to a full stop when the bar reaches your waist.
While the bentover row with two dumbbells is a great exercise, I’ve noticed that most pros only do them once a month. It appears that they prefer weighted hyperextensions or reverse-grip barbell bentover rows. Personally, if I were you, I would do bentover rows with two dumbbells every other week.
Good luck,ET
TONE uP ANd BE FITErniE,I am 30 years old and I’ve been lifting weights for 10 years. Once upon a time, my physique was ok, but since I had chemotherapy back in 2012, I have not trained at all.
I would really love to get back into shape and I was wondering if you could give me some advice. I no longer feel the need to build massive muscles—all I really want to do now is tone up and be fit.
Allen
Hi Allen,Chemotherapy is a very stressful and demand-ing course of treatment to put your body through with many serious and unpleasant side effects. You say that you do not want to build massive muscles any more and so I am wondering if you have been given the ok to start training again. Personally, I think that it’s important to try to stay active exercise-wise during, and especially after, chemotherapy. If you’ve been a bodybuilder before, then this should present no hardship for you.
The best way to tone up and get fit is to perform high reps during all your sets. I have made out a workout routine for you, which you should follow no more than three times a week. Twice a week do a good cardio workout (stationary bike or treadmill) for at least 30 minutes each time.
Here’s that three-day workout routine which will tone you up and make you fit.MONdAY: chEsT & shOuLdERschest1. Incline Seated Hammer Strength Chest
Press: 3 sets of 16-20 reps2. Flat Hammer Strength Chest Press:
3 sets of 16-20 reps3. Pec Deck: 3 sets of 14-16 repsshoulders1. Seated Front Smith Machine Shoulder
Press: 3 sets of 14-16 reps2. Cable Side Lateral: 3 sets of 14 reps3. Machine Shrug: 3 sets of 16 reps
WEdNEsdAY: BAcK & ARMsBack1. Front Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown: 3 sets
of 14-20 reps2. Close-Grip Lat Pulldown: 3 sets
of 14-16 reps3. Seated Low Lat Pulley: 3 sets
of 14-16 reps4. Stiff-Legged Deadlift: 3 sets of 14 reps5. Hyperextension: 2 sets of 20 repsBiceps1. V-Bar Low Cable Curl: 3 sets of 16 reps2. Seated Dumbbell Curl: 3 sets of 14 reps Triceps1. Straight Bar Triceps Pushdown: 3 sets
of 16 reps2. Triceps Dip Between Two Benches:
3 sets of 16 repsFRIdAY: LEGs1. Leg Extension: 3 sets of 14-20 reps2. Leg Press: 3 sets of 14-20 reps3. Hack Squat: 2 sets of 14 reps4. Leg Curl: 4 sets of 14 reps5. Standing Calf Raise: 3 sets of 16 reps6. Seated Calf Raise: 2 sets of 16 reps
Don’t forget to use lighter weights than usual and burn those reps out. Also, rest only as you need to, in between sets.
On the nutrition side, always consume a well balanced diet. Every day you should try to eat 1.5 grams each of protein and carbohy-drates per pound of muscular bodyweight. And don’t forget to drink plenty of water every single day.
Good luck Allen,ET
PRO cARdDEar ErniE,I have been trying to get my IFBB pro card for the last two years, and I usually compete in the 90 kg division. My question is this: if I’m ever lucky enough to obtain my pro card, what would I actually do with it? I wouldn’t like to enter a pro show just to make up the
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ERNIE TAYLOR
numbers, and I certainly would not be interested in ending my bodybuilding career, so really, is it pointless trying to get a pro card?
Big Tezza
Hi Tezza,Only you know the answer to this question, I’m afraid, because it all boils down to how much you really want this.
If and when you do happen to get your pro card, you will be competing in IFBB contests at the highest levels in the world. So, Tezza, if you do not believe that you are good enough to compete in pro competitions, then I don’t think you should be competing in amateur ones, unless of course you really love the excitement of competitions.
Usually, amateurs compete to live out their dream of becoming a pro; this is a huge
achievement by any standard, and it could open a lot of doors for them.
I really understand where you’re coming from, Tezza, however; I know of many bodybuilders who have been trying to get their pro card for over five years! But the good thing about these bodybuilders is that they have never lost their zest for the sport. They simply continue to train, which makes them get better, and brings them closer and closer to their life’s dream.
Most great bodybuilders do not throw in the towel when they fail to win a show. With bodybuilding being more competitive than it’s ever been, these guys simply pick up the pieces and start preparing for the next contest.
All the current IFBB pro bodybuilders do exactly the same. They train to become bigger, stronger and better conditioned on a yearly basis.
Your missing ingredients are persistence and determination. You need to dig deep and assess the situation to find out where you’re going wrong—a two-year attempt to get a pro card is absolutely nothing!
Good luck,ET
BICEPS PEAKING ROUTINEHi ErniE, I am 19 years old and I have been training for several years. My problem is that when I do a double biceps pose, my biceps look flat although they still look big when hanging relaxed by my sides. Can you give me a little help to build that nice biceps peak?
I have quite a few DVDs from your competition days, and I have to say that you were blatantly robbed in many of them.
Lee
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Hello Lee,Thank you for your kind remarks. What you really need, Lee, is not size (because it sounds like you have that) but peak. Achieving a better biceps peak is usually down to good genetics, but you can still work wonders if you pick the right exercises and work them hard.
When you train your biceps you must use a variety of exercise movements to build perfectly round and peaked biceps. You cannot acquire outstanding biceps if you only use regular barbell and dumbbell curls, even if you use very heavy poundages.
To unflatten or peak your biceps, you need to start doing lots of close-grip barbell curls, and I’m talking really close—your hands should actually be touching each other. You should also try close-grip cable curls from a low pulley—this exercise will hit the outer head of the biceps, forcing it to grow, As a result, your biceps peak should start to appear. Heavy dumbbell concentration curls are also very good for the biceps peak, but you must always lower the weight as slowly as you can. Try curling the dumbbell up to your mouth.
Here is a nice biceps-peaking routine for you to follow once a week.1. Dumbbell Curl: Two warm-up sets
of 12 reps and two work sets of 8-12 reps2. Close-grip Curl: Three work sets
of 8-10 reps3. Dumbbell One-arm Concentration Curl:
Two work sets of 8-10 reps4. Two-arm cable curl: Two sets
of 8-10 reps Good luck,
ET
CORRECT TRAINING PLANHi ErniE,I am trying my best to build some lean muscle, and I train each body part only once a week, like you recommend. I train my chest and back on Monday. On Tuesday I do arms, and I rest on Wednesday. On Thursday I train legs, and on Friday I do shoulders. I rest over the weekend. I do four exercises for each body part, incorporating compound exercises and isolation movements. I also happen to work in a kitchen, so I have access to all different kinds of food.
I have made some gains, but lately I seem to have come to an abrupt halt, even though
I always use a weight that just enables me to get 10-15 reps in a set. I always do three sets, on every exercise, and concentrate on doing slow and controlled reps.
I weigh 80 kg, but don’t look as ripped as I should—at 6 feet tall, I look more like wet spaghetti!
Jimbo
RONNIE COLEMAN
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Hello Jimbo,I would say that you are about 75% on track, except that you are not grouping your body parts correctly, and this is probably why you’re not
gaining as you should. For example, on Monday you train chest and back in the same workout, which is one major reason why you are not gaining. Jimbo, you cannot train two major body
parts together like this. After a really hard chest workout, it’s almost impossible to train your back properly. Also, I do not believe that biceps and triceps should be trained together in a
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workout. So really, it’s just about impossible for you to grow using this training plan.
I think that it’s about time for you to get down to some real training, which will build muscle you never knew you had. Here’s your correct training plan.MONDAY: SHOULDERS AND TRICEPSShoulders1. Seated Dumbbell Press: Two warm-up
sets of 12 reps and two work sets of 8-12 reps
2. Dumbbell Side Laterals: Two warm-up sets of 12 reps and two work sets of 10-12 reps
3. Dumbbell Alternate Forward Raise: Two work sets of 8-10 reps
4. Barbell Shrug: Three work sets of 8-10 reps
Triceps1. Wide-grip Triceps Pushdown: Two
warm-up sets of 8-12 reps and one work set of 12 reps, to failure.
2. Lying Ez Triceps Extension: Two warm-up sets of 8-12 reps and one work set of 8-12 reps, to failure
3. Dumbbell Kickback: Two work sets of 8-12 reps
TUESDAY: BACK1. Wide-grip Lat Pulldown: Two warm-up
sets of 8-10 reps and one work set of 15 reps
2. One-Arm Hammer Strength Row: One work set of 10-12 reps, each arm
3. Low Lat Pulley (Reverse Grip): Two warm-up sets of 8-12 reps and one work set of 8-12 reps, to failure
4. Bentover Row: Two warm-up sets of 8-10 reps and one work set of 8-10 reps
5. Hyperextension: Two work sets of 14-15 reps
WEDNESDAY: RESTTHURSDAY: CHEST AND BICEPSChest1. Incline Barbell Press: Two warm-up sets
of 8-10 reps and two work sets of 8-10 reps 2. Pec Deck: Three work sets of 8-10 reps3. Incline Dumbbell Flye: Two warm-up sets
of 10 reps and one work set of 8 repsBiceps1. Ez Bar Curl: Two warm-up sets of 8-12 reps
and two work sets of 8-10 reps
2. Seated Two-Arm Cable Curl: Three work sets of 8-12 reps
3. Dumbbell Curl: Two work sets of 8-12 reps
FRIDAY: LEGS1. Leg Extension: Two warm-up sets of
10-12 reps and two work sets of 10-12 reps2. Squat: Three work sets of 10-12 reps 3. Leg Press: Two warm-up sets of 14-15 reps
and two work sets of 15 reps4. Standing Calf Raise: Three work sets
of 8-12 reps, to failure.5. Seated Calf Raise: Three work sets
of 8-12 reps6. Donkey Calf Raise: One work set
of 10-12 reps 7. Stiff-legged Deadlift: Three work sets
of 8-12 repsGood luck,
ET FLEX
You can send your questions on training and nutrition to Ernie Taylor: ET Column c/o Weider Publishing Ltd, 10 Windsor Court, Clarence Drive, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG1 2PE or email [email protected].
JAY CUTLER
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Taking a purely scientific look at the best products in the world of sports supplements
OSCOPE By JIM STOPPANI
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CREATINE MONOHYDRATE is a supple-ment that needs no introduction. Almost anyone who is into sport and weight training knows that creatine is effective for boosting muscle size, muscle strength and overall athletic performance. What most people may not realise is that the main way creatine works is by providing the muscle fibres with the quick energy that they need for muscle contractions. So it’s a good idea to get a dose of creatine before your workout to ensure that your muscle fibres are fully stocked and therefore have ample energy to power through the workout resulting in more strength and endurance. Creatine also works through numerous other ways to boost muscle growth. One of these ways is by pulling more fluid into the muscle cells. Although this may seem like a temporary solution, the greater volume inside the muscle cell places a stretch on the mem-brane, which increases muscle protein synthesis, resulting in long-term muscle growth. Research has also found that creatine increases levels of the important growth factor insulin-like growth factor-1, and it has been shown to blunt levels of the muscle growth inhibitor myostatin. The majority of the research that showed these positive effects of creatine was done using the monohydrate form.GRADE: HHHHH
REASON: Creatine monohydrate has hundreds of clinical research studies supporting its ability to increase muscle size, muscle strength and performance.
TAURINE (2-aminoethanesulfonic acid) is often referred to as an amino acid although technically it is not one in the usual biochemi-cal meaning of the term. Taurine is derived from the amino acid cysteine and contains a
sulphur group, which allows it to perform important functions in the body that lead to increased muscle endurance and strength. Research also shows that it can increase blood flow to muscles, and pull fluid into muscle fibres to enhance the muscle pump.GRADE: HHHHH
REASON: Research confirms that supplement-ing with taurine provides numerous benefits that aid workout performance and results.
172 FLEX
The RatingsHHHHH Outstanding scientific research on
humans availableHHHH Solid research available; anecdotally
effectiveHHH Not much human research available but
premise is sound
Taking a purely scientific look at the best products in the world of sports supplements
CARNOSYN® BETA-ALANINE is a patented form of the amino acid beta-alanine, which is one of the most critical amino acids to take before workouts. Numerous research studies confirm that it boosts muscle strength and power, as well as muscle endurance. Beta-alanine works in the body by joining with the amino acid histidine to form the dipeptide carnosine. During exercise, carnosine prevents the muscle fibres from becoming too acidic, so that you can train with greater strength and power for longer. GRADE: HHHHH
REASON: Beta-alanine has more than enough research to suggest that it is an essential supple-ment to take before workouts for anyone interested in improving their muscle strength, muscle endurance, muscle size, and body composition.
CAFFEINE ANHYDROUS is the most effective form of caffeine that you can use. The majority of studies showing that caffeine enhances athletic performance have been done using this form. Although most people think that its benefits come down to just its action as a stimulant, caffeine does far more than just increase alertness and mental focus. Research studies have found that when caffeine anhydrous is taken before workouts, it boosts muscle strength and power as well as muscle endurance. Studies have also shown that taking caffeine before workouts blunts muscle pain. Less muscle pain allows you to bump up your training intensity and take sets further past muscle failure. Training with more intensity, strength, endurance and focus all leads to better results.GRADE: HHHHH
REASON: Caffeine is one of the most studied ergogenic aids in the world. There are numerous studies and decades of anecdotal reports that verify its ability to boost performance in the gym.
QUERCETIN is a powerful antioxidant/flavonoid found naturally in onions, apples, tea, broccoli, citrus fruits, grapes and capers. It’s been found to help reduce the risk of heart disease and certain cancers. Recent research has also shown that quercetin can help you avoid catching the flu, and assists in boosting blood flow to muscles. Studies show that quercetin can increase endurance during
exercise by increasing mitochondrial biogenesis. In other words, it can boost the number of mitochondria in cells such as the muscles and the brain. The mitochondria are basically the body’s own mini power plants—they work in all kinds of cells to produce energy. That not only means that quercetin can help you train longer and get more reps with a given weight in the gym, but it may also enhance fat-burning. Research suggests that the fat-burning effect of quercetin may be due to its ability to activate adiponectin, which further promotes fat-burning and inhibits fat storage. If that weren’t enough, the most recent research on quercetin suggests that it can also help maintain higher testosterone levels.GRADE: HHHHH
REASON: Numerous studies support the ability of quercetin to aid fat loss, performance and general health.
L-THEANINE is an amino acid that is actually a modified form of glutamine. It is readily transported into the brain where it promotes relaxation by naturally increasing the body’s production of GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), which is an important inhibitory neurotransmitter. Higher production of GABA increases growth hormone, which can aid muscle growth, as well as fat loss by increasing the release of fat from fat cells. You may be puzzled as to why this amino acid, known for its relaxation benefits, is included in a pre-workout supplement. This is due to the fact that when L-theanine is combined with caffeine, as in NANO VAPOR, it enhances brain function and mood. During workouts, this can lead to greater focus and improved mood, which can help with the mind-muscle connection and lead to better workouts. GRADE: HHHHH
REASON: Theanine has a plethora of research supporting its ability to promote relaxation as well as aid brain function and mood, which all help you get a better workout. FLEX
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eIffShortly after winning the heavyweight and
overall titles at the 2005 NPC Junior National Championships (his third contest and first national
level qualifier), Phil Heath hit this pose during his first photo shoot for FLEX magazine. The image and accompanying lines from Heath’s first FLEX cover show the then-25-year-old
poised for bigger things, and he delivered, earning his pro card a few weeks later at the NPC USA Championships and then winning his first two contests in his rookie pro season in 2006. Despite minor speed bumps over the next few years, he continued to make good on the hype, climbing all the way to the top to become Mr Olympia. FLEX
Racing to the top
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