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Trainer of Champions - October 2005 |
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Written by Charles Glass
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Thursday, 26 April 2007 |
What are your thoughts are on ketogenic diets? I see a lot of articles in magazines and people having great success. It's just a bit confusing because I have always heard that you need carbs before training to get a good workout and carbs after training to replace what you lost. What's your opinion?
Ketogenic diets include several types of well-known zero-carb diets, the most famous one being the Atkins Diet. They are extremely effective, especially in the short term, for weight loss, which is why they've become so popular over the last few years. The main attractions for the average person are threefold: 1) they are simple to understand- just don't eat carbs! 2) they allow a person to eat "taboo" foods like bacon, cheese and pork on a daily basis; and 3) because carbs attract water, cutting them out will cause a dramatic initial weight loss. Most people don't realize this weight loss is nothing but water and are very happy to drop five to 10 pounds within the first week or two.
For average folks who aren't too active and aren't concerned with working out and building muscle, a ketogenic diet is fine. For bodybuilders, such a diet is a terrible idea. Most often, a bodybuilder will embark on a zero-carb diet while preparing for a contest. It's true you should definitely reduce the amount of carbohydrates you eat gradually in the final 12 to 16 weeks before a competition in order to lose fat and tighten up, but eliminating carbs completely will spell disaster. There's just no way you can have the energy to push through a good workout unless you are eating some carbs before training and no way your muscles can recover from those workouts without taking in some carbs right after.
Eventually, you will lose a lot of size and strength and arrive at your event looking depleted and flat. It's common for athletes to think they can Make Up for 12 weeks without carbs by loading up on them for three days before the show, but it's always too little, too late. There's no way you can regain all the fullness and muscle mass you lost just by eating some sweet potatoes and rice for a couple of days! So a dieting bodybuilder needs to reduce his or her carbs to just the amount needed to train and recover, but carbs still need to stay in the diet. The exception would be on days when you don't train with weights. Then, it's okay to go without carbs, but you should keep some healthy fats in the diet on those days such as lean red meat, whole eggs, or nuts.
In the off-season, for a bodybuilder trying to grow, carbs are even more essential. Gaining muscle mass is all about stimulating the muscles with heavy, intense workouts, then letting the muscles rest and feed the body what it needs to synthesize new muscle tissue. This means you need all the macronutrients in abundance: protein, complex carbs and healthy fats. Trying to put on size without carbs would be like Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill in Hades- a lot of wasted effort. So, whatever your goals are as a bodybuilder, you will need at least some amount of carbohydrates as nutritional support to reach them.
How often should a muscle be worked? In the 70's and 80's it was popular for people to train each muscle group twice a week. Now it's once a week, allowing the muscle to fully repair before training it again. I'm currently hitting each muscle group once a week as I feel with the amount of volume I do, anything more would be overtraining. It just seems odd that smaller muscle groups like arms would need as much time to recover as areas like the legs and back. Also, is the amount of work sets a person performs relative to the frequency of training? For example, if I wanted to start training each muscle group more than once a week, should I drop the amount of work sets I perform from nine to 16 per muscle to maybe six to nine to avoid overtraining?
I'd like to address the issue of training the smaller muscle groups more often, because they should be able to recover faster. In theory it's true, but in real life, the arms receive a great deal of ancillary work as opposed to training any of the larger torso muscles. You simply can't hit the chest or shoulders without a major contribution from the triceps, or work your back without taxing the biceps. So, if you weren't training the torso muscle groups, you might get away with working the arms more frequently. It's true that in the 70's and 80's we often trained everything two or even three times a week, but it's because we simply didn't know any better. Overtraining was rampant, but the word wasn't even in circulation because nobody worried about it. Times have changed and now we know how important it is to let the muscles recover completely before training them again.
Let me use my own experience as an example. When I started bodybuilding, I weighted 151 pounds and was so gung-ho I trained everything, including my legs, three times a week. I was in the gym two or three hours every day and even though I was eating like a horse, I couldn't seem to gain an ounce of weight. As I started to read more and put things in perspective, I realized I was probably overdoing it and cut back to training each muscle group twice a week. Within about six months, my weight went up to 180 pounds and I was still just as lean as ever. It's how I trained for several years, until eventually I no longer had as much time available for my workouts and was forced to drop down to hitting everything just once a week. Though I expected my gains to slow down quite a bit, to my surprise, I got up to about 220 pounds over the next year or two. Now, I have most of my clients train a body part once a week. I feel you can apply a lot more energy and intensity to the workout this way since you know you won't get a chance to work it again for a week, plus it's totally recovered by the time you do. You don't hold back one bit the way you would if you knew you were going to work the same muscle again in just three days.
If you do decide to work your muscle groups more often than that, you should definitely cut back on the volume (as you suspected). Always remember workouts only stimulate growth. Without allowing for adequate recovery, growth will never occur.
My right shoulder was injured. I saw a chiropractor as well as an orthopedic specialist and it seems like all I really need to do is lay off heavy weights for a while and then be very careful with my form. I also needed to stop doing behind-neck barbell presses, which, I confess, I did for a long time even though I suspected they were wrecking my rotator cuff. Do you think in the meantime, I can still get my shoulders to grow by doing either pre-exhaust or super slow reps? If possible, could you please suggest a routine a person with an injured rotator cuff could follow that would keep the joint safe, yet, still let me grow? Any help would be appreciated.
I've said this before, but I will keep repeating it because the behind-neck press is such an effective mass-building movement. Pressing behind the neck is only dangerous when you lower the bar too far, such as to the traps. If everybody stopped the bar at the top of their ears, we would very rarely see any rotator cuff problems associated with this exercise. Lowering only to the ears keeps the stress off the joints and connective tissue. I have also talked about a more effective way to do your side raises, which puts more emphasis on the medial heads of the delts. Start with the dumbbells at your sides, rather than in front of you, with your thumbs facing toward your torso, knuckles out. As you perform the raise, the thumbs should point toward the floor and the heels of your hands should face the ceiling.
Another exercise that can give you some new shoulder mass is power presses (also called push presses) inside a Smith machine. Stand up with the bar just above your clavicles and use a little "push" from the legs to start the upward drive overhead. The movement should be performed fairly rapidly; the others can be done at a slower tempo. Try this routine and I'll bet you see new gains in deltoid mass, despite your injury (if you're still in pain, check with your doctor to be sure it's okay):
Behind-neck press 4 sets x 12-15 reps
Dumbbell lateral raise 4 sets x 10-12 reps
Smith machine power press 4 sets x 10-12 reps
How much protein do you think bodybuilders really need? I ask because I have been taking in two grams per pound of bodyweight over the last six months, up from the 1.5 grams I was eating daily. I don't seem to be getting any bigger or stronger as a result of the increase, but I do notice my gym clothes reeking of ammonia after training. So I wonder if all the extra protein is just getting wasted.
As you should know, I don't like to discuss performance-enhancing drugs, but know that these products do allow athletes to absorb and utilize more protein than a drug-free athlete is capable of. Many of my professional bodybuilder clients over the years who used these items were able to consume two or more grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day and grow like crazy. However, if you aren't using these products, which I don't feel you should be unless you are a professional athlete who makes his or her living from their physique, this would be too much protein for your body to use and the excess would be wasted. Ammonia is indeed a waste product of protein, so your theory is correct. You should go back to one and a half grams. I would like to suggest a few other things so you can get more out of the protein you eat. First, you should be performing cardio at least three times a week for 30 minutes, even if you aren't trying to lose any body fat. Cardio stimulates the entire metabolism; you can't make your best gains without it being part of your training program. The second suggestion is take some digestive enzymes with your meals. Many people don't assimilate the protein they eat because they lack the sufficient amounts of enzymes to break it down. Best of luck to you!
Charles, I have read a few times over the years that there are two muscle groups that can't be overdeveloped: The shoulders and the calves. Do you feel this is true?
As a matter of fact, I happen to disagree with your statement. I have seen plenty of bodybuilders who have overdeveloped their shoulders. When they do, it makes the arms, chest, or back look weak in comparison. I can give you examples of all three. Masters Mr. Olympia Claude Groulx has incredible shoulders, but they make his arms look small, even though they are anything but. Paul Dillett was always criticized for his back. Partly because he had trouble posing it to showcase it properly, but another factor was his melon delts were so overpowering that in the rear double biceps shot, they drew all the attention and his back seemed shallow. And Chris Cook certainly does need to bring his chest up a bit more, but it's only because his massive shoulders are so powerfully built, round and full. Now calves, they're a different story.
Calves are almost always a stubborn body part and very few bodybuilders have good calves. Even the fortunate few who are genetically blessed with giant calves don't have to worry about them dwarfing their thighs, as the quads and hams are such massive muscle groups. So I would say you probably don't have to worry about having calves that are too big. However, if you aren't careful and you have the genetics to build mass easily in the shoulders, they definitely can be overdeveloped.
MD Exclusive - Journal, July, 2005
Looking to Get Certified?
I get a lot of inquiries about which personal training organization I recommend for certification. For nearly two years, I have been associated with the PTA, or Private Trainers Association, in the role of senior executive vice president of operations. This is the organization I feel is best at educating the next generation on the most useful and up-to-date methods in exercise and nutrition. Other pro bodybuilders and fitness athletes on staff and working as examiners include: Lenda Murray, Melvin Anthony, Bob Cicherillo, Craig Titus, Chris Cormier, Kelly Ryan, Chris Cook, Dennis James and Laura Mak. For more information, visit the site at www.propta.com
My Olympians are Starting Their Prep!
Chris Cormier just started working with me today for his Mr. Olympia training and things are going well. Chris seems to have a lot less going on in his personal life and should be very focused for the show. He weighs about 285 pounds now and is just getting back into intense training. He'll also start his nutritional consultations with Chad Nicholls in a few weeks. Chris will probably get up to an even 300 pounds and stay there for a month before he starts coming back down. His top weight thus far has been 292, so I can easily see him coming to the Olympia looking thicker and fuller than ever, but with the same small, flat stomach and razor-sharp conditioning he showed at the Arnold earlier this year.
Gunter Schlierkamp is looking very tight right now at 329 pounds. In fact, this is the best he has ever looked at this weight, so I am also very excited to see how he shapes up. I know he wants to do better than the sixth place he got last year. I am also working with Jenny Lynn for the Figure Olympia, helping her bring her legs up so they match her upper body and balance out her physique. Jenny lives way up in Walnut Creek, California, near San Francisco, so she has been flying down to LA and staying for three or four days at a time to train with me.
Watch Me Train the Pros
By the time you read this, my website (www.charles-glass.com) will have added a new feature: Live webcasts of me training the pros. This will be part of the member's section and available for a small fee. One thing I will do with this is train clients who live several states away, like Johnnie Jackson. At the moment, one of us has been traveling to the other to train, but with the webcast and webcam, I will be able to demonstrate exercises and then watch him to make sure he is doing them properly. It's going to take my training business into a whole new realm, cyberspace!
The Hazy Future of Women's Bodybuilding
There's been some discussion between Lenda Murray and I about training her for the Ms. Olympia, but at this time she isn't sure if she will be competing. Much of this has to do with the Ms. Olympia being held entirely at the exhibit hall at the convention center, not at the Orleans Hotel, where the Mr. Olympia, Figure Olympia and Fitness Olympia are going on. My former client, Joanna Thomas, was so upset about this slight, as well as where the general direction of the women's sport seems to be heading, that she is retired for now and has left Los Angeles to stay with a friend in Florida. It's too bad, because up until then, Joanna was excited about the prospect of competing after the IFBB stated they wanted the women to downsize their muscularity by 20 percent, making women's bodybuilding healthier and a bit more feminine. But right now, nobody is sure what's going on. I feel for the women because they work as hard as the men, if not harder, but their dedication does not seem to be appreciated and the financial rewards are minimal.
MuscleTech's Secret Product Coming Soon
I am very excited about the new product MuscleTech is unveiling. It's similar to Pump-Tech, only better, allowing you to hold a pump even longer. They have been working on it for quite some time. People seem surprised that the company flies me and the other athletes up to their headquarters every three or four months to learn about the new products and stay informed about the existing ones. It's because most supplement companies simply pay athletes to appear in the ads and at booths. MuscleTech actually wants all the athletes they have under contract to know the products inside and out so we can speak intelligently about them and answer questions potential buyers might have. This is a big part of why I love working with this company and plan to stay part of their team. That's it for now.
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Performance Nutrition 