I've heard all the hype about L-Glutamine for years, but never gave it a try. Do you find it really helps with your recovery and your immune system? What times of day do you take it, and how much each time?

            I do think glutamine is one of the few "must-have" supplements, as it greatly enhances your recovery from hard workouts. How much you take will depend on your bodyweight. Most of the label directions are geared toward an average-sized adult male, about 180 pounds. Generally, the recommended dose is 10 grams. So, if you're a woman or a man who is significantly lighter, you'd probably be able to see good results using just six or seven grams per serving. If you're 250 or even 300 pounds, 10 grams would most likely be insufficient. Someone that size would probably need more like 12 to 15 grams at a time. 

Most of my clients take it first thing in the morning, again before they train and often after they train, as well. The competitive bodybuilders I train (there are about 10, and they only Make Up about a quarter of my total clients) use glutamine more frequently because they're working out harder, longer and more often and thus, need all the help they can get when it comes to recovery. Most of them will also take a serving of glutamine before they go to sleep, so it can be as many as four servings a day for them.

Not to get too off the subject, but I like to make the distinction "competitive" bodybuilders because I consider anyone who is in the gym making changes to their physique that involve building muscle and losing fat to be a "bodybuilder," even if they could care less about the sport of bodybuilding and have no intentions of ever stepping on a stage. So, getting back to your question, yes, glutamine is a solid product that I think all hard-training bodybuilders should have in their kitchen cabinet or gym bag.

            I'm just getting back into training after a six-month hiatus. I'm
being honest with myself and know I have gained some body fat; I want
to make losing what I've gained my first priority before I worry about getting back the size and strength I lost. I work in retail and don't follow a regular schedule. There's not a whole lot of time outside of work, with being married and having an 18-month-old daughter. I can manage a good three days of training, though. Should I focus on cardio instead of weights until I lose all that fat? Or, if you think I should do weights too, should I consider a whole-body weight workout or split it up over a few days?
            This is a question I bet I've heard 1,000 times over the years from men and women who have gotten out of shape and gained a lot of unwanted fat.  The common assumption is that they should focus purely on cardio until they lose the fat, and only then start heading over to the weights. This is not a smart strategy and I'll tell you why. When you're doing only cardio, you will certainly lose weight, but it won't all be fat. You will lose muscle, too. Even if you are fortunate enough to lose nearly all fat, you will not be pleased with the way your body looks once the fat is gone. You will have loose skin and a flabby, jiggly look to the muscles, as there is no muscle tone to them. This is what is known as being "skinny-fat," and it's actually fairly common among aerobics instructors who don't weight train. These people usually look good in clothes, but in swimsuits or nude- yikes!

Even if you're not concerned with gaining muscle size and strength, you still want your body to be firm rather than flabby, right? So you should incorporate weight training into your fitness program along with cardio. I wouldn't recommend working the whole body each time.  You can split up the muscle groups either two or three ways. Here are a couple of options, assuming you're going to train Monday, Wednesday and Friday:

Two-Way Split

Monday:                     back, chest, shoulders, abs

Wednesday:              arms, legs, calves

Friday:                        back, chest, shoulders, abs

(Rotation starts over on Monday with arms, legs, calves)

Three-Way Split

Monday:                     back and shoulders

Wednesday:              legs and calves

Friday:                        chest, arms, abs

I would do the weight training first, trying to get the workout done in about 45 minutes; then do 30-45 minutes of cardio. If you can swing it, I'd also recommend doing cardio on the weekends, preferably first thing in the morning before breakfast. You don't necessarily have to go to the gym for that, either- just take a very brisk walk around your neighborhood for 35-45 minutes. As you develop greater cardiovascular endurance, you can up the cardio session to 45-60 minutes. But always continue to include weight training. That way, when the fat comes off, you'll be much happier with what you see revealed.

            Charles, I've been a fan of bodybuilding since guys like you, Lee Haney, Lee Labrada, Bob Paris and Mohamed Makkawy were around. I hate to sound like one of those types who just harps about how great the old days were, but something seems to be seriously wrong with the moral fiber of the pro bodybuilders today, or at least some of them. I never remember hearing about guys being in trouble for selling drugs back then. Now, it seems like it's a different pro every month. What is wrong with these guys today?

            It almost always comes down to finances. To be a competitive bodybuilder at the highest amateur, and even more so, at the professional, level in 2005 costs a lot of money, and you all know what I mean by that without me having to spell it out. Many bodybuilders don't want to work, because that would interfere with their regimented daily schedule that usually includes one or two weight training workouts, one or two cardio sessions, up to eight or nine meals (another huge expense right there) and eight to 10 hours of sleep a night, plus an afternoon nap.

Not only do some of these guys not want to work, they also expect everything to be handed to them. They are looking for easy money. I'm not saying it's right, but selling drugs seems like the natural solution for a lot of these guys to make that easy money so they can live their bodybuilding lifestyle uninterrupted. Of course, not all the guys selling drugs are doing it to support themselves. I bet a large percentage of "dealers" are only making enough money to pay for their own gear and have a little bit left over. They have regular jobs and don't even consider themselves "dealers." Just guys helping out a few of their friends to get the items they need. But instead of helping their friends, they are actually hurting the sport by making it seem as if all bodybuilders are involved in some nefarious criminal activity. I think most of the guys you're hearing about are not small-time types selling to a few friends. They are moving large amounts of product, often smuggling or otherwise illegally importing the drugs into the USA.

 Since 9/11 and the consequence of upgraded concern over domestic terrorism, there's been a lot more attention focused on packages coming into the USA from other countries. So, that's one reason more and more people are getting in trouble. Another reason is that steroid laws have changed a lot since the old days. Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, nearly all the offenses related to buying, selling, or possessing steroids were classified as misdemeanors. So, if someone did get in trouble, it wasn't such a big deal and you usually never heard about it. Things are very different now, with all those offenses strictly classified as felonies. So, someone doing the same things now will face far worse consequences in the legal system than they would have back then. I appreciate you thinking that the bodybuilders of my era were morally superior and all, but I had to clarify that it's not necessarily true. Bodybuilding today is a lot more expensive and the risks and penalties associated with steroid trafficking are far more severe. 

            Before I explain my problem, let me say that I just had a full physical and work-up from my doctor and I have a totally clean bill of health. However, I'm constantly fighting fatigue. I don't think it's from overtraining, because I only train four times a week for about an hour to an hour and a half. And I  sleep a good seven or even eight hours every night, uninterrupted. But I just don't seem to have much energy. I used to rely on ephedra products to keep me going, but those became illegal and I ran out of what I had a couple of months ago. Now, I drink about 10 cups of coffee just to make it through the day and I still feel like taking a nap. Do you have any suggestions on how I can have more energy and stop dragging around tired all the time?

            Before you do anything else, I would go visit another doctor, explaining your problem, and have more tests conducted. Doctors are not perfect and they‘ve been known to miss things here and there. I'am taking a shot in the dark here, but you could be hypoglycemic, anemic, or even diabetic. You could even be clinically depressed. Have all the tests done again just to be double sure it's not something serious like that. I hesitate to offer advice on supplements that boost energy, because people have a tendency to go overboard. That's what happened with ephedra. Used at the recommended dosages, very few people ever experienced any problems. But when some people were taking, say, 20 capsules a day, when it clearly stated on the bottle not to have more than four in a 24-hour period, some serious health episodes occurred. So, I'm hesitant to suggest even something as innocent as B-12 or ginseng, because if you take too much of anything it can be dangerous. 

The only supplement I would feel comfortable recommending is glutamine, which I talked about earlier. Other things you may not be doing are drinking enough water or eating enough fiber. Water helps flush toxins from the body and fiber keeps you regular and prevents undigested food from getting "clogged" at various points along your colon. That will make anybody feel sluggish and lethargic. If you won't eat a few servings of fruits and vegetables every day, at least use a fiber product like Metamucil.

These ideas may sound too simple to be the culprits in chronic fatigue, but you would be surprised how many people are affected from an excess build-up of toxins and waste in their bodies. Believe me, I know all about dealing with fatigue, because I work from four in the morning sometimes, until seven o'clock at night training clients.

I have huge triceps and shoulders, but my chest is not very thick. I've been told that I have to learn how to make my chest do the work, but nobody can explain exactly how this is done. I figured you may have run into this problem before with clients, so please help me out and try to describe exactly what I should be doing. I do want a more balanced physique and I'm willing to try whatever you say.

            I wish you had also included a rundown of what you're currently doing for your chest so I could see if your routine is an effective one, but that's okay. I have a strong suspicion it's not so much what you're doing that's not delivering results, but how you're doing it. There is one thing I want you to start doing either at the gym or at home right away, and that's to start posing your chest. I know this sounds strange, but a huge part of your problem is that you don't have a good mind-muscle connection with your pecs. If you don't know how it's supposed to feel when your chest contracts, you certainly can't expect to be able to properly contract it against resistance.

             So do this: At least three times a week, hit a series of 10 crab most-muscular poses, followed by five side chest poses from the left and right side. Hold each pose for a count of five and don't forget to breathe! Really concentrate on squeezing and flexing the chest as hard as you can. Once you master that, you'll actually be able to get a decent pump just from posing.

 OK, so that's going to help you quite a bit. Now, let's talk about the weights and what you should be doing. One thing that's critical is your grip on the bar. Let's use the bench press as an example. Using too narrow a grip will recruit mostly the triceps and front delts. That's why the close-grip bench press in one of the absolute best mass builders for the triceps. And if your grip is too wide, you won't get much of a range of motion and again, the shoulders will be more involved than the chest.

Your ideal grip is going to be slightly wider than your shoulder width. I don't describe this width in terms of which rings to set your thumb or pinkie at on a knurled Olympic bar, because we all have different arm lengths. But try to think of it this way. At the bottom position when the bar is touching your chest, your forearms should be perpendicular to the ground, or at perfect right angles.  If your forearms are facing inward toward each other, your grip is too narrow; outward and the grip is too wide. This spacing allows you the best stretch and contraction of the pecs.  

Another thing I want to mention is setting your body up correctly so that your chest is forced to do more of the work. Before you even take the bar off the rack, put a slight arch in your back while raising your sternum/ribcage. Pinch your shoulder blades together and press them into the bench. This will effectively take your shoulders out of the movement as much as possible. As you press, be sure your elbows are out to the side rather than tucked down toward your hips. Otherwise, the triceps start taking over the movement. Also, many trainers find that dumbbells allow them to better feel the pecs working than barbells. I don't know if you have only been using barbells, but if you have, you should definitely give dumbbells a try.

I will leave you with a couple of effective chest routines to try.  

Workout A

Incline dumbbell press

Flat barbell press

Pec flye machine

Workout B

Decline barbell press

Incline Hammer Strength machine

Flat dumbbell flyes

Workout C

Incline barbell press

Flat dumbbell press

Cable crossover

Dips (lean forward, elbows flared out)

The Charles Glass Update   

Mid-December, 2004

Getting My Size Back While Working as Much as Ever

Usually my complete focus is on changing the physiques of my clients, but recently I started paying some more attention to my own body. I have signed with MuscleTech and they asked me to do a body transformation using a new product they've designed. I wish I could go into more detail, but they have asked me to keep it confidential until they unveil it in a new print ad. The supplement industry is highly competitive and this is necessary to prevent copycats or other companies from attempting to capitalize on their innovations. 

            What I can tell you is that I have already increased my bodyweight from 168 pounds to 181 at 5-foot-7. I want to take it up to about 187 and just get harder at that weight. This is actually pretty close to what I weighed when I was competing as a pro bodybuilder in the ‘80s. People always assumed I was heavier because I have extremely small joints, which create the illusion of greater size. I have never stopped training, of course, but lately I have increased the amount of weight I use and I've brought the reps down. I actually train six days a week and keep the workouts fairly short, about forty-five minutes to an hour, an hour and a half max, doing just one body part a day. 

            Seeing as I train an average of 14 clients a day, you might wonder when the heck I have time to get my own workouts in. Luckily for me, I have a couple of clients who love to train with me, so I train during their sessions. Believe it or not, these clients won't even train unless I'm training with them, so it works out perfectly for both of us.

            You know, I get a lot of people asking me, especially other personal trainers, how can I work with so many clients every day and not get burned out?  I have to answer that I'm quite fortunate. I have great clients who are all hard workers with positive attitudes, they pay me very well and I love what I do.  Otherwise, I'm sure I'd have quit years ago, or at least lightened up my schedule quite a bit. Right now people are asking me if I am taking a week off for the holidays, and they are surprised when I say that I'm not. The only time I ever stop training my clients is when I go out of town for something. Even then, people find out I'm coming to Las Vegas, Dallas, Atlanta, wherever I happen to be headed, and they ask if I can train them while I'm in town. Since they are very sincere in wanting to work with me and are willing to pay for my services, it's very hard to say no. I now try to keep my travel plans a secret whenever possible!

What's Up with My Pro Bodybuilder Clients?

            I didn't get to go to the NPC Nationals because my mother was having surgery at the same time and I had to be there for her, so I missed seeing my client, Chris Cook, win his pro card in Dallas. I was very happy when I heard the news. Now, he can close one chapter in his bodybuilding career and begin a new one. The IFBB is going to be a whole other level than what he's been up against so far, because everyone there is a national champion at the very least.  He's in an off-season mode now and trying to capitalize on the whole "rebound" effect you get after a contest diet to add some more muscle, especially to his chest and back. They are much improved from 2003, but they still need to come up before he gets up there with the pros. He's around 270 and still very hard.  Chris may do the Ironman, which wouldn't give him a lot of time to prepare, or he may instead opt for the New York pro show in May. The fact that he hasn't gotten too out of shape means he still has a few more weeks before he has to make that decision.

            Chris Cormier is back training hard with me now, with the goal of redeeming himself at the Arnold Classic and finally winning that darn show at last. He didn't look nearly his best at the Olympia and that's a direct result of his training. When Chris first started getting ready for the Olympia, he was hitting the weights with a vengeance. Then he started thinking too much about how he got shafted at the Arnold and let it really get to him. His intensity became sporadic. For a couple of days in a row he would train hard, then he'd slack off, sometimes blowing off entire workouts with me or showing up so late I couldn't work with him for much more than 15 or 20 minutes because I had another client scheduled. But lately he has been doing great, and I'm hoping he keeps the fire in his eyes all the way up to the Arnold Classic.

            Victor Conte and the Infamous "20/20" Interview

            Another huge topic of conversation in gyms everywhere is the now infamous "20/20" interview with Victor Conte of BALCO Labs. What do I think about it? My opinion is that Conte is just trying to get himself off the hook by naming all these names and making all these accusations of drug use. It's bad for everyone in all sports, even bodybuilders. There are a couple of well-known bodybuilders who were associated with Mr. Conte and that only reflects badly on the sport as a whole.

            The thing that really bothers me is that this whole scandal is just perpetuating the misconception the general public has that steroids produce champions. Those of us in the know are aware that by themselves, steroids don't do much at all. It's only when a dedicated athlete puts 110 percent into his or her training and nutrition that we see impressive results. I bet most of you have known a bodybuilder or wannabe bodybuilder at your gym who used steroids and didn't get very good results. They usually justify it by saying they must have had fake stuff or they didn't take enough, but the painful truth is that they didn't put the work in.

             I hate to see steroids labeled as a tool of the lazy, because that's far from the reality of the situation. You can't say someone winning gold medals in the Olympics is lazy. It's just not true. Those athletes train so hard and for so long that the average person couldn't even comprehend such a regimen. And on the subject of the Olympics, why didn't they crack down on steroids 30 years ago when the Russians and East Germans were dominating the Games thanks, in part, to steroids? It would have been much easier to nip it in the bud back then before it got so pervasive and into every sport in every nation. But nobody seemed too concerned with it back then. The average American 30 years ago had never even heard the word "steroid." They probably would have thought it was a big rock out in space like a meteor or an asteroid.

            I happen to think the whole steroid "scandal" and outrage is politically motivated. Any politician can gain popularity by taking an anti-steroid stance, particularly when he or she makes it a point to let us know the real danger is kids using steroids. I agree that young men have no business using steroids.  You take a kid who has been picked on and feels insecure, then put him on a substance that increases his aggression while boosting his strength and power, and that can be a dangerous mix. We have enough trouble with these kids today acting out with violence. But as for mature, responsible adults, particularly elite professional athletes, using things in an intelligent manner and under supervision to enhance their performance, I don't think it's fair to lump that type of usage into the same category. 

            Finally, it irks me to see growth hormone being called a steroid. All of you who read MD know it's not a steroid. In fact, in longevity and life extension centers all over America, growth hormone is being legally administered to older men and women as a "fountain of youth" that restores strength, vitality and skin elasticity, and has many other positive effects. In fact, many elite athletes in strenuous sports have diminished testosterone and growth hormone levels from all the physical stress. They would be wise to see a doctor and have drugs legally prescribed to them for legitimate hormone replacement therapy purposes rather than buying and using drugs illegally. In light of everything currently transpiring, that's something anyone using performance-enhancing substances should look into as soon as possible. The writing is on the wall: The U.S. government is going after steroids in a very big way and they have the manpower, technology and resources to take a lot of people down. Don't be one of them.

Got a question for Charles? E-mail it to him at http://www.musculardevelopment.com/.