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Trainer of Champions - August 2003 |
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Written by Charles Glass
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Thursday, 26 April 2007 |
I thought we'd take this month's installment to do something really special. Since the response to my training articles about Gunter have been so incredible, now is a great opportunity to compile all the data we've got on Gunter to review and analyze. I call this critical data "The Gunter Files," which chronicles Gunter's phenomenal progress and graduation into being one of the top bodybuilders on the circuit.
We only had five months to work with his physique before the Olympia. What I decided to do was ask the judges questions about Gunter's body, and find out what they thought his weaknesses were. I knew what they were in my mind, but since I'm not an IFBB pro judge, I had to go to Jim Manion, the head judge in the organization. I had a productive discussion with Jim when he came to town, as well as with the other judges who I thought would be on the panel for the Olympia.
Once I got the feedback from the judges, I decided to work on what he needed to improve. The judges were almost unanimous in what Gunter's weaknesses were. He needed a little bit more upper back, overall back thickness, triceps and tighter abs. I kept everything in mind and said we'd do the best we could with most of the body parts. The muscles that are behind will get first priority over the body parts that aren't as weak. The approach was very systematic.
Gunter's Chest
We started using stuff in the gym like inclines, power presses that a lot of the powerlifters used to do that also brought up the pecs. What we did was push presses, which means we put the stoppers up on the rack so the barbell can only go so far upward before it hits the stopper pins. We're also using an extreme incline so the movement hits more upper pecs with a little bit of the front delt. To isolate the upper pecs even more, Gunter had to lower the weight down to a complete stop on the pin, and then exert all the force to push it back up. Going heavy on an extreme incline press, and having to work within the confines of the stoppers, is very hard to do because of the load, but the upper pec muscles absorbed all the movement, which was our goal. This worked out really well because his chest started to come up very fast.
In fact, we're doing the same thing right now, and Gunter is improving more and more. We had his weight up to 328 pounds, but he had to travel on business. Every time he takes a business trip, he comes back five or 10 pounds lighter. At the moment, Gunter's on leave for 14 days, so when he comes back I roughly figure his weight will be about 315 pounds. But, we've got him up to 333 pounds before, so I know we can get it back to that point soon.
Gunter's Back
To bring up Gunter's back, we used dumbbells exclusively. Most people tear muscles when they start using barbells, but you never hear about them tearing a muscle when they use a dumbbell. Even though the dumbbells are harder, they work much better. Dumbbells are probably about the best thing you can do for back. Most use barbells because it's impressive to use heavy weight on back movements, so they'll use a wide grip on the bar for movements like bent-over rows. But, if you ever try to do a bent over row with dumbbells, you'll know instantly that it's really hard to get a good contraction because it's so heavy and each arm is pulling separate from the other.
Aside from the lat pull-down type machines, we used dumbbells for rows, deadlifts, upright rows, rear delts- anything requiring a pulling motion for the back. A bent-over dumbbell row is done the same way as a barbell row, except the contraction is greater. Plus, you can even do one arm at a time for even more range of motion. You'd be surprised what the dumbbell deadlifts would do to build up the back and how we did them.
I had Gunter almost do a dumbbell bent-over row, but when the arms were rowed up, he stands up and contracts the back. On the lowering portion of the deadlift repetition, the erectors are stretched. It seemed to work really good for Gunter, because the more we did, the better his back started to look. We worked on Gunter's back pretty much from day one all the way through, and we never backed off the heavy weights, knowing that heavy weights are going to do all the building we needed for more muscle mass. He's never had a problem with conditioning, so getting him in shape wouldn't be an issue.
Out of the Norm
Gunter's training program used some movements that are out of norm for most bodybuilders. Where they would go with barbells and machines, we stayed with free weights. Most guys will go from barbells down to machine work because they run out of gas and it's a little easier to control and handle. But I've always figured that the lighter you start to go, the more your muscle will deflate, especially when you're trying to diet down. I didn't want to give the muscles time to deflate at all. I wanted to keep them full, so we tried to stay on the heavy weight as long as possible.
Overall, we used more of a powerlifting style. If you look at the average powerlifter, their chests are humongous and they don't do a lot of reps. You get shredded when you start doing repetitions. I went along with that principle when we started doing some of the stuff powerlifters used to do way back in the days, just by reading some of the articles from way back when and then bringing it forward into today's physiology. What I saw the powerlifters doing was going as heavy as they could with minimal repetition. So, we at least try to do six to eight reps. A lot of times we may get five reps, but mind you, we're doing a 455-pound press for a triple. Gunter's not a power lifter; he's a bodybuilder, yet he's still strong. I believe that if you don't build up muscles the right way, you'll have no density to the muscles. So we're trying to keep that dense look where Gunter's real thick and massive instead of soft and puffy on stage.
What we did to bring out Gunter's lower lats was the pull down machine, but we used it a little differently. We have a bar that's shaped like a V to keep the grip wide. We keep the elbows forward and we pull down low into the lower part of the lat instead of onto the upper lats. We found that the lower lats got a lot thicker for him with this movement.
About sets and reps, I didn't take Gunter's sets to failure except for the last set. We do the first set, it's always 15 reps, because he's still warming up. After that, we start to go a little bit heavier where the reps are 12, 10, eight and then when I do a max set, we'll get out six reps.
The amount of sets depends on how much endurance he has. We normally don't count the first warm-up set, so everything after that is mainly four sets per movement.
We're going to make sure his stomach stays down because that's what the judges are looking for, to see what the abdomen is going to look like. I took control of Gunter's ab training, because I want to get his abs down and tight. Really, really tight. I had Gunter start to use controlled breathing while doing his leg work. Most people hold their breath when they're doing squats. That's the wrong thing to do, because when you hold your breath, you push your stomach out. That just makes your stomach get bigger and bigger. Gunter also did a lot more lower ab work. I got him breathing properly during his leg workout to control his stomach, and after that, we immediately start doing abs. We're doing knee raises in a way where you don't extend all the way down and get your hip flexors involved. Then we did weighted knee raises, crunches, and general stuff like that, which gets a lot of middle abs, too. Gunter trained abs at least four times a week and the hard work made a difference for him.
Gunter's Triceps
Cable Pushdowns 4 Sets x Max out
Olympic Bar Skullcrushers 4 Sets x Max out
One of the main things I wanted Gunter to do is contract the muscles more. Normally, Gunter would train with guys who never pushed him to the limit. They'd just let Gunter do whatever he wanted to do, and they'd follow along.
When Gunter and I started training together, what I did is start making Gunter go a lot heavier with the weights and not worry so much about doing 12 or 15 reps per set. Instead, I'd have him give me as many reps as he could with heavier weight, and he'd be squeezing and contracting throughout the whole exercise. He started to really push himself hard, and that's when we started seeing improvements.
For triceps, we did a cable pushdown but with a special bar I had this guy make or us. The bar actually swiveled in our hands when pushing down, and that allowed us to push the wrist over more and go deeper into triceps. A standard straight bar locks you into an upward stance and the triceps lose the contraction towards the bottom. I use variations like that all the time.
Gunter's second triceps movement was skull crushers (also known as a French Press), but instead of an E-Z curl bar, we used a straight bar. The EZ curl bar sometimes takes the pressure off the triceps and onto the chest because you're able to flare the elbows out. The straight bar forces you to keep the elbows in or it will kill your wrists if you start flaring out too far. So, when we do skull crushers, we try to keep the bar in front of us with elbows in, bring it down to the forehead and go straight back up, contracting the muscle more. Guys are sometimes fearful of using a straight bar on skullcrushers because of hurting their wrists, but as long as your form is tight without your wrists turning backward, you won't have any problems.
Gunter's Biceps
Drag Barbell Curls - Total of 16 or 14 sets, 12-15 Reps
Straight Bar Curls
Hammer Curls
Preacher Curls
Gunter's biceps program is purposely basic. His arms are very long, so we had to modify the equipment itself when we did movements that locked him in place, such as preacher curls. That's why we tried to go more with free barbells and dumbbells, which would allow him to get a more natural range of motion. Four sets per exercise is our motto for biceps, and the reps varied from workout to workout. We went heavy, so I had him give me as many reps as he could for four sets per exercise.
Gunter's Quads
45 Degree Leg Press 20 sets total
Vertical Leg Press
Reverse Hack Squat
Free Squats
Smith Machine Squats
Gunter can be a little thicker in the hips because of his genetics and squatting with a wide leg stance, which puts more pressure on the outside. The hips have to support you a lot more, so you tend to thicken up on the waist and hip areas. To put more size onto his quads, we brought his feet in closer on each movement. He can put on so much more muscle this way without applying pressure on the hips. We use so many different exercises when we do Gunter's quads that it's not possible to have a set routine for him. Every time it's something different. One routine may be leg press, hacks and squats, or we may come in and do squat press machine first, then vertical leg press machine, then reverse hacks. We try to vary it each time so the legs are not familiar with what we're doing. You can become complacent by doing the same thing over and over. I like to keep them guessing as to what we're going to do so they can't be prepared for it.
On the 45-degree leg press, he normally goes up to 30 plates total and he's cranking out 10 or 12 good reps. The one-legged leg press will come in, but right now we're trying to build more size, so we're staying with the standard way of pressing with both legs. We use squats, but we pre-fatigue the quads by doing leg presses and reverse hacks first. Once you pre-exhaust, you don't have to worry about trying to put a lot of weight on your back, because your legs are dead already. It allows us to use correct form by moving our legs back in and not worrying about getting hurt. Your legs are just as taxed with a lighter weight as they'd be if you started your quad routine with max weights on the squat. Gunter's feet are always kept close together, and unless he breaks parallel, we don't count it as a rep. The Smith machine comes into play only when he's totally exhausted. Otherwise, we try to use the free weights.
As I mentioned, we're always changing up Gunter's quad training, including sets and reps, but a general rule of thumb is 20 reps at the beginning of the workout, and working our way down to just 12. When we do squats, we start off with 12 reps and our heaviest one may be eight. We do four sets on each exercise, and we are always mixing it up.
Gunter's Calves
Standing Calf Raise 5 sets each.
Seated Calf Raise
Donkey Calf Raise
Gunter already had big calves, and can get away with doing pretty much anything to get them to grow. We do the straight up standing calf raises and seated raises but we try to change the feet position where they point out on one set, then straight ahead, and finally Gunter will point them inward. I like to work it that way. We choose up to three calf exercises and do 20 reps, four sets apiece.
Gunter's Hamstring Exercises
Lying Leg Curls 4 sets, 20 reps
Seated Leg Curls
Stiff Leg Deadlifts
We're really trying to bring out more size and detail in Gunter's hamstrings. Just like with quads, sets and reps will vary from workout to workout, but three to four sets per movement is usually a normal amount of sets. Gunter first starts with a lying leg curl, but we do them differently. Instead of lying flat on the bench, we lift our torso up off the pad and rest on our elbows so we can squeeze the glutes tight before curling the legs. The angle puts all the pressure directly on the ham rather than the lower back and glutes. You can't go very heavy because the secondary muscle groups aren't in motion to assist in the movement.
From there we go to the seated leg curl machine, the one where it locks your legs down with a padded lever over the top of the quads. But, we don't lock our legs. We let them stay free, and tie Gunter in so that he doesn't move and just uses his own body weight to hold himself down and contract the hamstring that way. Variations likes this one cause the muscle to be completely isolated and result in better growth.
To finish up Gunter's hamstring workout, we'll have him do stiff-leg deadlifts. Gunter is very tall, but I still keep his legs straight. Stiff-leg deads are mainly for the separation in the hams, and we don't go with really heavy weights. If you're trying to build mass in the hams, this isn't the exercise you'll want to do. Moving along, Gunter will get maybe 20 reps or so, and three to four sets.
Exercises, sets, and reps are always different because Gunter may be tired that day or we purposely mix things up to keep the muscle unaccustomed to the work we're doing.
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