|
|
|
Trainer of Champions - February 2004 |
|
|
|
|
Written by Charles Glass
|
|
Thursday, 26 April 2007 |
Do you ever see a day, maybe in 20 years or so, when we could possibly have exercise machines that are as effective, or perhaps even more effective, than free weights?
This is not an easy question to answer, because I sure don't have a crystal ball. If you went back to 1983 and told everyone about the Internet, cell phones with pictures and text messaging, DVD players in your SUV and computer navigation systems in your car, they would have thought you were crazy. Technology makes huge advances every year now. And I can say that I have been training long enough to see nearly the entire evolution of exercise equipment. When I started out, most gyms (and there weren't a lot of them back then in the first place) were equipped mostly with free weights and the occasional Universal multi-station. You would also see a wall-cable unit once in a while.
Then, as the ‘70s went on, Nautilus machines started popping up everywhere. They got a lot of hype and bodybuilders got pretty excited about using them. At that time, Nautilus was a huge advance in equipment design. The owner and inventor, Arthur Jones, did, in fact, come up with some improvements on certain free weight movements, such as his pullover machine for the lats. In fact, I would rate the whole line very well even to this day. Soon after, you started seeing more machine lines coming out from companies like Cybex, Icarian, Paramount, Bodymasters and Hammer Strength.
I have been in a pretty unique position over the past two decades to really keep track of what was happening in exercise equipment, because Gold's Gym in Venice serves as a showroom. Anytime a company comes out with a new product line, they send one of each model to Gold's. They know that with all the photo and video shoots taking place there every week, it's a great opportunity for exposure, as well as a way to get word of mouth going on their latest designs. So my clients and I have always had access to the very newest state-of-the-art machines. Some of them were very good, some of them were a bit of a disappointment. A lot of them looked really neat, space-age and streamlined, but once you tried them, they just didn't feel "right." You know what I mean?
There are some great machines today, and I do have my clients using some of them. But they also include free weights in their training, because free weights work in a way no machine will ever be able to. Because you are holding on to a piece of iron and allowing your body to move in its natural plane of motion as you perform the exercise, you have more Freedom to find the exact right "groove" for you and your particular body. Machines lock you into a predetermined movement pattern and allow no variation from it. Because of this, I will never have a client of mine work out using only machines. The free weights are always in the routine, too. Will some genius develop a new type of futuristic exercise equipment that will eventually make free weights obsolete? Who knows, perhaps that will happen in our lifetime. But from what I have seen, that day isn't coming anytime soon.
Have you seen a shift over the past couple of decades from relying on hard training and solid nutrition for a championship physique, to thinking steroids can do all the hard work for you?
I think about this issue a lot. Back in the ‘70s and even into the early ‘80s, you didn't hear a lot about steroids. Of course, bodybuilders were using them, but it was a subject rarely talked about. There wasn't a huge fascination with steroids. They were cheap, fairly easy to get and limited to a few common items like test, D-ball, Deca and Anavar. Back then, we looked at steroids almost like any other supplement, such as weight gainer shakes or liver tablets. They were just something you added on top of hard training and good eating to give you better results. And let me tell you, the bodybuilders back then, on average, trained circles around the majority of guys today. They trained hard, they trained for a long time and they had some very good physiques using very minimal amounts of drugs, for the most part.
The magazines never talked about steroids and I'm pretty sure a lot of the guys reading them had no idea there was even such a thing as steroids. I know it sounds like a really naive time, and in a way it was nice. Things changed in the ‘90s and I see two main turning points. The first was the arrival of Muscle Media 2000 on the newsstands around '93. Writers like Dan Duchaine were talking openly about steroids, how to use them and how much and what kinds the pros were using. Handbooks about how to use steroids by Duchaine, Bill Phillips and others were published. Right after that came the Internet, and everything changed completely. Websites sprang up all about steroids, some even selling steroids, and all of a sudden most of the young kids started becoming obsessed with steroids.
The myth grew that steroids were some magical potion and that the pros only looked the way they did because of steroids. More magazines started talking about drugs and giving advice and the problem only continued to worsen. Over the past 10 or 12 years, I see a lot of young guys taking more and more drugs and training with less and less intensity and heart than the guys back in the old days. It actually makes me sad, because I love bodybuilding and I always want to see it move forward, not backward. And if this generation coming up right now doesn't start to realize that drugs are not what makes champions, I see nothing but trouble ahead. We will see more health problems, more guys getting in legal trouble buying and selling juice, and the physiques will get worse instead of better.
Before, most bodybuilders would train for a good four or five years and build a very solid natural base of size and strength before turning to steroids. They would at least get fairly close to their natural potential. Now, most of these kids don't even want to start lifting weights unless they have some drugs. They don't want to wait even a year before they get on a cycle. I have to shake my head when I see young kids, teenagers even, with gyno, receding hairlines and puffy red faces. I firmly believe you can make the best natural gains of your life in those years when your body is producing peak amounts of test and GH on its own. Using steroids at this stage of life is such a blatant waste, it's disgusting. So while on one hand it's good that we have so much reality and access to information, on the other hand I still reminisce and long for the days when we were a lot more concerned about training harder than we did last time, than we were about getting a chemical edge on everyone else with insane amounts of drugs.
It seems like most of the guys with great forearms have never even worked them. My forearms are pretty mediocre, and I'm wondering whether I should try to improve them with direct work like wrist curls. Have you ever taken someone with average forearms and made them into Popeye? If so, what type of routine did you have them do?
I have indeed taken guys with pretty average, or even downright skinny, forearms and put a lot of meat on them. Before you get all excited, you have to understand that the forearms are a lot like the calves in several ways. Their potential for growth is directly related to the length of your muscle insertions. Flex your forearm and take a look at where the muscles insert, especially the forearm flexors on the underside. The closer that insertion is to your wrist, the more muscle cells you have to work with. Conversely, the closer those insertions are to your elbow, the less your chances are of ever having Popeye forearms.
But don't despair. With dedicated work, anybody can make noticeable improvements in the lower arms. I can definitely say most guys seriously shortchange their forearm development by not bothering to even work them. That's one surefire way to make sure they don't grow. They usually don't need anything too fancy to respond. Wrist curls and reverse wrist curls with a barbell or a cable work very well, and I also like behind-back barbell wrist curls. Cutting back on how much you use wrist straps for back training also gives the forearms some effective work and strengthens your grip, too. One thing you want to do is keep the reps pretty high, around 15-20. The calves and forearms are extremely dense muscle groups with a high percentage of slow-twitch fibers, so low reps won't do a lot for them. Another thing you can do is buy a pair of grippers, the kind you probably had when you were in junior high or middle school. You know, the ones that are really just two handles with a little spring connecting them that you squeeze together. With those, you can give your forearms some extra work at home when you're watching TV or surfing the Internet. But assuming you're going to do your forearm training entirely in the gym, here's a workout you can use twice a week that should get those buggy whips growing fast.
Barbell wrist curls 3 sets, 15-20 reps
Cable reverse wrist curls 3 sets, 15-20 reps
Chin-up bar hang 3 sets, 45-60 seconds each
Who are the hardest-training bodybuilders you have ever personally watched work out, and what was it that impressed you the most?
That's a great question, because I think I have been privileged to see some of the most intense bodybuilders of the last couple of decades go through workouts that simply defied logic. Sometimes it was hard to believe a human being could put themselves through what these men did, to go so far beyond the barriers of pain, but I saw it all with my own two eyes.
First, you have to have the Golden Eagle, Tom Platz, in there. Tom trained everything hard, but he seemed to have an extraordinary pain tolerance for legs. Trust me, he may have had great genetics for the lower body, but those legs would never have become the best of all time if he had trained them like every other bodybuilder. He took leg training to a level that probably no more than a handful of other bodybuilders ever approached. High-rep squats were his specialty and they were usually with pretty heavy weight at the same time. Listen to this; he was able to get 405 for 50 reps, 495 for over 30, and even with 600 pounds on the bar he could still get 15-20 reps. And these were true, bodybuilding-style squats, all the way down, not those little half-reps you see all the time. Tom would even do really insane things like take 225 and squat continuously for 10 minutes. I have seen a few other guys who thought they could handle a lot of pain try just that feat, and not one of them was able to duplicate it. Even Tom himself would have to lie down on the floor for a very long time after those marathon sets of squats before his breathing returned to normal and his legs would support his body weight again.
Next up was another one of the top stars of the 1980s, Rich "The Dragonslayer" Gaspari. I first saw Rich train when he came out to live in California briefly, just before he turned professional. I think he was all of 20 or 21 years old at the time. But man, did that kid train like a demon! The amount of effort he would put out was staggering. So many times it would look like he couldn't possibly eke out another rep, but then he would dig down, grit his teeth and get two or three more. Every vein on that guy's body would be looking about ready to burst. I saw Rich do these giant sets, drop sets and other exercises in pain and endurance that would have had the average man crying like a baby and quitting. He wasn't supposed to have very good genetics, and people told him in the early years he wouldn't get too far in the sport, but he trained his butt off and was second only to Lee Haney for a few years.
Before we leave the ‘80s behind, I also have to include the Barbarian brothers, David and Peter Paul. Those were two of the craziest sons of guns to ever lift weights. Gregg Valentino has mentioned in his column how they used to slap each other in the face and cuss and yell at each other to get psyched up for their sets. Those twins scared the crap out of a whole lot of people in Gold's Venice over the years, who must have thought they were deranged killers just paroled out of San Quentin. The truth was that they were both very nice guys with terrific senses of humor. But when it came to training, they had no concept of a "light day." I don't think I ever saw them train chest when they didn't bench press at least 500 pounds each for reps. Not a single machine weight stack in the place had enough weight for them, and they used to pin on plates, stack dumbbells on and even have one brother climb up to provide enough resistance for the other brother. They would curl 120s and row 200s like the dumbbells were hollow, repping out forever. The Barbarians were real-life warriors and Gold's was their battleground. Not coincidentally, they were lean at 260-270 pounds long before that was an everyday sight. It's a shame neither of them ever competed in bodybuilding.
Now, as we get into the ‘90s, two men stand out and both are six-time Olympia champions as I write this- Dorian Yates and Ronnie Coleman. If you have ever seen either of their training videos, you know the incredible focus and effort they put into their workouts. I saw Dorian train a couple of times in the off-season when he was around 300 pounds, and the man was a machine. "Blood and guts" says it all. Yates never gave up on a set until every last ounce of his energy was spent. When he trained, his face was like a stone mask. Nothing else existed in his universe at those moments except him and the weights. Ronnie is much the same way. Anyone who thinks he looks the way he does because of great genetics or drugs quickly changes their mind once they watch him train. The guy does powerlifting weights for bodybuilder reps. It shouldn't even be possible, but Ronnie does it day after day. You also have to give him extra credit for keeping up with that inhuman workout pace while working full time as a police officer all those years.
I have seen several other bodybuilders over the years that also trained extremely hard, but the men I just discussed are the standouts in my mind. One last thing I want to note was that although they were all physically gifted, it was their mental power that allowed them to train at the level they did. Mind over matter isn't just a clichéd catchphrase; it's the only explanation for those men and what they did in their training.
No matter what I try to do for my side deltoids, whether it's lateral raises with dumbbells, machines or cables, or upright rows, I always feel it in my traps. My traps are already overdeveloped and I haven't even trained them for a couple of years, but my shoulders really lack that wide, full, rounded look. Is there another exercise I can try? Or should I just keep relying on overhead presses and hope my side heads get some of that work?
I doubt it's the exercises you're doing that are the real root of your problem. What seems to be the real issue is that you don't have a strong mind-muscle connection with your side deltoids. That's not easy to develop, but you can get it if you are willing to try a couple of methods. First, I want you to try doing super-slow reps. A lot of times when bodybuilders can't feel a muscle group working it's because their form is sloppy and other body parts are, in fact, doing nearly all the work. You see it all the time with guys who can bench press a lot of weight, yet have very poorly developed pecs. They usually have overpowering triceps and front delts. In your case, I suspect your traps are taking a lot of the work that the side delts should rightfully be getting. Super slow reps are an effective way to isolate a specific muscle group and make sure that unwanted help isn't being given.
Try lateral raises with a cable or machine, taking 10 seconds to perform the positive, a second to pause at the contraction and five seconds to lower the resistance. Really concentrate on your side heads doing the work. In fact, even when you're not at the gym, practice putting a hand on your opposite side deltoid and trying to feel the muscle fibers in there contracting as you slowly mime the action of a lateral raise.
Another trick you can try if you have a training partner is to have him push down on your traps as you do your lateral raises. (It's easier for him to accomplish this if you are seated). I have found this helps lifters with your problem eliminate the role of the traps as much as possible. The other thing I want you to give a shot is increasing your reps on lateral raises and upright rows. (Note: I prefer dumbbells over a barbell for upright rows). In many cases when someone can't feel a body part working, it's because they are using a lot of weight and just doing a few reps. That's strength training, which is not going to break down the muscle fibers and cause growth the way higher reps do. Do most of your sets for those two exercises in the 12-15 range, but also include a final pumping set of 20-30 reps. If you can't feel your side deltoids working and burning from a set like that, you may want to check your pulse. You may already be dead! Seriously, give these suggestions a try and I bet your side heads won't be a problem area much longer.
|
|
Magazine Archives 
