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Trainer of Champions - November 2005 |
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Written by Charles Glass
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Thursday, 26 April 2007 |
I had a baby two years ago after being confined to my bed through the
pregnancy. I'm more than 60 pounds overweight (I was in decent shape prior to this).
How can I get back to exercising? I've changed my eating habits:
protein and complex carbs only and I've limited fats to olive oil, avocado and fish
oils. I use Myoplex Lite for at least one meal and use different Fat Burners.
My problem is joint pain and chronic fatigue. I have two toddlers and I
have also returned to college full time for my B.A. I need help with
how to combat stress eating and weight gain and suggestions for exercise.
I'm glad to hear you've changed your eating habits for the better. Joint pain is fairly common as we age. Have you been evaluated by a doctor to see if you suffer from arthritis? If that's the case, there are both prescription and over-the-counter drugs that can offer relief. I'm also curious to know whether you've been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome? I suggest visiting www.cfids.org, which has a lot of useful information about chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome, a mysterious malady afflicting over one million Americans. I'm not a doctor, but I can tell you regular exercise will improve most people's energy levels.
Exercise is also an excellent way to manage stress, so you can cope with your admittedly demanding daily schedule. If it's possible, my advice is to work out early in the morning, after a light breakfast. Rigorous weight training and cardio in the morning energizes you for the day. More importantly, if you do it first thing in the morning, it's out of the way and you won't put it off or be too tired later on. Most gyms have morning daycare, so you'll see plenty of other moms sweating and improving their bodies, which should provide additional motivation. You'll be surprised to see how many working moms look fantastic these days, thanks to a commitment to exercise and good nutrition. I suggest you get to the gym five or six days a week if possible, doing a full-body circuit routine on three of those days, followed by 45 minutes of cardio. On other days, do no weights and an hour of cardio on the treadmill, stair climber, or elliptical runner. I know losing weight seems like a daunting challenge, with your schoolwork and responsibilities taking care of your children, but many others have done it and so can you! As long as you're dedicated to reaching your goal and realize it will take some time (most people quit when they don't see immediate results within a week!), you'll be just fine.
What's the best way to do the lying triceps extension (skull-crushers) without hurting the elbows? I usually get a lot of elbow pain when I do it and I can't do it with heavy weights.
It sounds to me like you've already strained the tendons to the point where they're severely inflamed at the insertion point into the elbow. This is very, very common among bodybuilders and the only surefire remedy is to lay off the movements causing the pain so the tendons can heal. The bad news is tendons heal very slowly. I suggest you not do skull-crushers or any similar extension movements for at least a month or two. In the meantime, try what I call "close-grip pushdowns." These are essentially close-grip bench presses, except with a cable unit and a short, straight bar. Start with the bar at about chest level, leaning slightly forward, then push it straight down, letting the elbows flare out away from your body. I would also take an anti-inflammatory agent like Ibuprofen and ice the elbows twice a day to help the healing process. When you do return to extensions, go light and do high reps, around 20-30. You don't want to have your elbows just starting to feel better and then get them inflamed again. I'm just getting over some annoying pain with my left elbow and the aforementioned cable exercise allowed me to maintain my triceps mass while I avoided extensions. Be careful from now on, always warm up with at least three high-rep sets whenever you train triceps and stay away from weights you can't do at least 12 reps with in good form. The elbows take a lot of abuse from bodybuilders, so take care of them. As you know, once they start to hurt, they will hurt for a long, long time.
I have a question about actors and actresses who get in good shape for movie roles. At least, they get in good shape as far as mainstream people are concerned. I notice that often you see these same actors later in a tabloid in a bathing suit or something and they've either lost whatever muscle they had, gained a bunch of fat, or both. I suspect they only eat right and work out hard for a little while and then go back to eating like regular people and stop training. Another sneaking suspicion I have is that a combination of special lenses and lighting and maybe even digital effects make them look more muscular. Am I right, or am I way off base?
You're pretty much correct on just about all of your suspicions. You have to understand there are very few people in general dedicated to a fitness lifestyle 365 days a year the way bodybuilders are. Celebrities are regular people despite their fame and riches and most of them don't enjoy hard training and strict dieting, which are necessary to achieve a muscular appearance. They can endure it for a few months leading up to the filming of a movie, with the help of celebrity trainers (who are master motivators), a nutritionist and a chef to prepare plenty of clean meals that taste good. But once the filming is over, the actor or actress returns to their usual routine, which may involve some form of exercise and good eating, but nothing like what they were doing before. Also, as you suspected, there are many tricks of photography to make actors look better. Special lenses and lighting can hide wrinkles, camera angles make a person appear to be taller and bigger and editors can digitally "etch" in abs and muscle separations where they don't exist. I've even heard of little makeup tricks like using Preparation H on bags under the eyes so actors appear younger and more energetic.
Finally, as you point out, the general public has a different idea of what's muscular. A guy with a 15-inch arm and a vein up the biceps is considered to be a muscle god by some. I remember when Linda Hamilton came out in "Terminator 2." All you heard was how big and lean she was. Those of us in the bodybuilding industry were thinking, are these people serious? An actor has a good set of abs on TV or in a movie and the average American watching it is blown away by the shape this guy or girl is in. On the upside, seeing fit actors and actresses is still something that inspires a lot of people to put down their doughnuts and get into the gym. And that's always a good thing.
In the last Battle for the Olympia DVD, you included vertical leg presses for the part where you were taking Dennis James through a leg routine. Do you think it's a safe machine for the knees and back?
It can potentially be a dangerous exercise if you aren't positioned properly under the platform, or if you lower the platform too far and round your back. In general, if your tailbone rolls up off the pad, you've gone too far. Position is key with the vertical leg press. If you find your butt rolling up and you haven't lowered very far, you need to either scoot forward or backward until you find the right spot for your structure. Most of the vertical leg press machines produced over the last 10 to 15 years have platforms angled toward you, to help get your pressing angle correct even if you aren't very flexible. The older models had platforms that were perfectly parallel to the floor and you needed to have a lot of flexibility in the hips, knees and ankles to go heavy on them without joint issues. The vertical leg press can be tough for certain individuals with back problems, such as my client, Chris Cormier. What my associate Robert Farag and I do is slide a pad underneath the upper back to raise the chest and keep the hips flat so they don't round. Chris loves this exercise, as do many top bodybuilders going back to the days of Arnold, Franco and Dave Draper. It's a lot tougher than the more common angled leg press and you can't go as heavy because you don't have the leverage working in your favor, but it's a great mass-builder for the thighs. If you have access to one, you should definitely use it. Just be safe and make sure your body is lined up properly.
Some say it's impossible to stimulate inner or outer chest because the muscle fires on an all or nothing principle. Others say it's possible. For example, I've seen your clients perform seated machine chest presses, done while holding the vertical support bars outside the horizontal handles, so the palms face each other. You prescribe this to stress a client's outer pecs. What's your take on this? Does every type of press just hit the whole chest, or is it possible to isolate certain areas?
I'm a firm believer in the ability to selectively stimulate specific regions of a muscle by means of using a specific angle of pushing or pulling. In the case of the chest, if pressing at an incline didn't target the upper section of the pecs, then nobody with a weak upper chest will be able to remedy the situation by doing incline presses. But I can personally attest to having witnessed literally hundreds of bodybuilders, many of whom were clients I trained, build mass to their upper chest that didn't previously exist when they focused more on flat pressing movements like the standard barbell bench press. On the other side of the coin, I have a friend whose only chest exercise has been the weighted dip, which is essentially pressing at a decline angle. Declines target the middle and lower chest and so it shouldn't surprise you to hear my friend's pectoral development is all in those regions. In fact, his lower pecs are so overly developed they now hang like breasts! This isn't uncommon. Many bodybuilders and weight trainers love the flat bench press and the decline press because they're able to use more weight than they are on inclines and as a result, they often show weak development in the upper chest. In situations like this, I often advise people to stop doing flat and decline movements and perform only incline presses. You're correct in that the entire chest does work when you do any type of press. If you do only inclines, the lower and middle chest will still work a little, but it's the upper chest working the hardest. In summary, some things that make sense on paper don't actually make sense in reality. Remember- from an engineering point of view, bumblebees shouldn't be able to fly!
Journal- August, 2005
Another Life Lost Too Soon- It's Time to do Something
I learned Ms. Olympia competitor Fannie Barrios passed away suddenly and I was hearing stroke or aneurysm as the cause of death. My deepest condolences go to her husband and daughter. This has been a rough year for bodybuilding. We've lost Don Youngblood, Paul DeMayo, Anthony Clark (a powerlifter, but still "one of us") and Charles Durr. We're also hearing about more athletes with heart and kidney problems. Are drugs part of the problem? No doubt they are. But attending the recent Team Universe got me thinking that the promoters need to go back to testing for diuretics. Steroids can be dangerous when abused for lengthy periods of time, but diuretics can kill you in the blink of an eye. The real issue is bodybuilders need to have regular check-ups with full blood panels done, at least twice a year. This should be mandatory, but I know it would be impossible to enforce, plus, who would pay for it? The IFBB? Not likely. Many bodybuilders avoid the doctor and never have blood work or physicals because they prefer not to know if anything's wrong- definitely a stupid attitude and one that can cost you your life. A lot of bodybuilders don't even have medical insurance. I've been paying for my own health insurance for many years, because I consider it an absolute necessity, despite the cost. The Private Trainers Association will soon have affordable health insurance not only for its certified trainers, but also for any bodybuilder who wants to take advantage of it. We felt a responsibility to not hoard this service for ourselves. You can stay up-to-date on our web site, www.usapta.com. All bodybuilders need to stay healthy. I don't want to hear about anyone else dying needlessly because of a health problem that could've been treated.
Arnold a Sellout?
Arnold recently cut his ties with the Arnold Classic contest, as well as with Weider Publishing/AMI. Because of this, many in the bodybuilding and fitness community feel he's turned his back on us. What they don't realize is California voters, as well as his political rivals, forced his hand. Had he not severed these ties and remained on the Weider payroll and been associated with a sport with a bad reputation of steroid use, there's simply no way he would be re-elected. Whether or not bodybuilding and the supplement industry deserve the negative connotations it has with the public and the mainstream media is beside the point. Arnold did what he had to do if he has any hopes of keeping his job.
My Olympia Athletes are Shaping Up
Right now I'm training three men for the Mr. Olympia. Chris Cormier is weighing in at a hard 297. This is by far the biggest and best I've ever seen him. He's squatting 600 pounds for easy reps and we'll keep the heavy squats in his program for a few more weeks. At that point we'll switch to different exercises and focus on muscle detail.
Gunter also looks huge. It's funny that a lot of people like to try and create feuds between him and Chris out of thin air. The fact is, they get along and have trained together at times and eaten at the Firehouse together. They may not hang out all the time, but they have a mutual respect for each other. Even when a few clients of mine may be having a disagreement, they know I don't want to hear about it or take sides. I don't waste valuable time with gossip or trash talk. These athletes know they're in the gym to get the job done and train hard. Besides, nine times out of ten, these things have their origin in hearsay. Some instigator will tell one guy the other guy said this or that just to rile him up, when in fact nothing was ever said. It's tough when you're dealing with egos, but in the gym, you have to focus on the job at hand.
I'm also working with Johnnie Jackson. He'll be coming to L.A. next week to train with me, then about a month later. Johnnie is refining all the raw mass he built from his powerlifting and I'm excited to see what other improvements we can make. I'll also be part of the muscle camp he and his training partner Branch Warren are putting on in Texas in November.
Training Mike Tyson?
Finally, I'll be meeting with two professional boxers over the next week to discuss training them for a fight in November. Both are heavyweights and may actually be fighting each other, in which case I'd have to choose. The first is "Relentless" Lamon Brewster, the current WBO heavyweight champion of the world, with a record of 32-2-0, with 28 KOs. I actually trained him years ago when he was just coming up as a pro. The other man is none other than Iron Mike Tyson, who needs no introduction. Lamon was easy to work with and Mike may be more of a challenge for me as he's a little older and we've never met. I'll let you know what develops.
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Performance Nutrition 