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Trainer of Champions - August 2004 |
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Written by Charles Glass
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Thursday, 26 April 2007 |
I am very proud to announce signing on for another year writing for the most hardcore magazine in bodybuilding, Muscular Development. Various work commitments have made it difficult for me to contribute as much information as I wanted to for a while, but now I'll be doing more to share my years of experience with you all. It's great to be part of the team that brings you the most cutting-edge information you will find anywhere, and I am really looking forward to being an active part of that team. I'm fired up now, so let's get to some of your recent questions!
How important do you feel squats are for bodybuilders? I've seen several training videos and "Road to the Olympia" tapes over the years that showed you putting various pros through leg workouts and I don't think any of them squatted. I ask because I love leg presses and hack squats, but absolutely hate to squat. My legs get a lot of comments, so they must be pretty decent. If you tell me I have to squat, I'll consider it.
I think I need to explain something about those "Road to the Olympia" tapes that Mitsuru Okabe has been producing for years now. These are never, ever shot in the off-season, but instead in the final three weeks leading up to that year's Mr. Olympia. You sell a lot more videos with guys looking all ripped and veiny than you would if they were smooth and not showing much definition.
You may know that most pros tend to train a little differently toward the end of their contest prep phase. Energy levels are down from many weeks of low-carb dieting and a lot of cardio, and of course body fat levels are extremely, almost dangerously, low. Often the athletes aren't getting as much sleep because their metabolisms are racing along so fast. There is less synovial fluid between the joints because the body's water levels are also lower than normal. This is not the time to be pushing your heaviest weights, and it's wiser to replace heavy barbell exercises like squats and deadlifts with machines toward the very end, mainly for safety's sake.
We all have egos and trying to use your off-season weights anywhere near a contest is not a good idea. Your chances of getting hurt are exponentially higher at this time. So, in the case of legs, I will often switch the bodybuilder from squats to leg presses and hack squats starting at four weeks out from a show. Neither one of those machines puts much pressure on the spine, so there's very little risk to the lower back, as there would be with heavy squats. We get the most out of these machines by creating different angles to work specific areas of the muscle. For more outer sweep to the quads, for example, we will keep the feet close together and toward the bottom of the platform. At Gold's Venice there's a vertical leg press I really like in which you can position your feet so the heels are actually off the platform and you push from the toes.
But your real question was how important squats are for bodybuilders. They are of utmost importance, particularly in the early stages of your career when you are building your solid base of mass and power. Barbell squats should be the mainstay of your leg routine if you want bigger quads, hams and glutes. Some pros did them for years and only recently have stopped doing them, as their legs are big enough, while many other pros continue to squat as part of their leg training, but prudently back off from them in the last few weeks before they compete. It sounds like your legs are pretty good right now, so the choice is yours to make. If you are pretty happy with the size they are, you can probably get away with not squatting. But if you are interested in taking them to the next level and making them freaky, then yes, squatting is the most efficient exercise to achieve that.
What do you think about double-splitting for average bodybuilders who aren't making their living from the sport? I am a single guy and would have no problem getting to the gym twice a day, but I don't know if it would be of any benefit. I mean, what's the difference between doing say, chest and triceps all at once, or one in the morning and one at night?
I feel that if you have the time to train on a double split routine, you should absolutely do it. It's not a matter of whether or not you make your living as a bodybuilder or a barber; it all comes down to how effective you want your training to be. Using the example you mentioned about training chest and triceps together, what do you think is going on with your triceps while you are pounding your chest with flat presses, incline presses, decline presses and dips? Those triceps are also taking a beating. By the time you finish up chest and start working your tri's, those poor suckers are already half dead. There is no way you can use as much weight and get as good a pump hitting triceps after chest as you would training them later on in the day.
Think about it; they will have several hours to rest, you can eat a couple of great quality meals in that time span, and get charged up to hit them hard. You could even do both biceps and triceps in the PM workout after hitting either chest or shoulders in the AM. If you decide you don't want to double split, I at least encourage you to arrange your muscle groups in a push/pull fashion. You wouldn't want to train triceps after chest or shoulders, but you could still work biceps with either and get a decent workout. But since you stated you would have no problem getting to the gym twice a day, you would be foolish not to. Your overall results are going to be much better because you are divvying up your workouts into more "bite size pieces," if you will. It's a lot easier to put total intensity and effort into just one muscle group at a time than it is to try and pace yourself over the course of two or more body parts.
Charles, you go to all the big shows. In your personal opinion, who are the top two or three pros with the best physiques out there right now? And do you lean toward favoring a certain type of look over another?
It's hard to say who has the best bodies in the sport of bodybuilding today, because there are different types of physiques. It's all a matter of opinion, based on whether you like a whole lot of muscle, or are more into aesthetics and lines. If you're looking for someone who packs a ton of beef, the guy who has won the Mr. Olympia title for the past six years, Ronnie Coleman, would be your pick. If you prefer perfect shape, proportioning and conditioning, you would probably prefer someone like Dexter Jackson. The judges usually go for the guys like Ronnie, though lately that seems to be changing. I wouldn't want to judge the Mr. Olympia, that's for sure. In the symmetry round, I would have to give it to Dexter, but Ronnie is a hands-down choice for the muscularity round.
Right now, I'm training both Chris Cormier and Gunter Schlierkamp. They have totally different shapes and structures, but my job is to help both of them maximize what they have and be the very best bodybuilders they can be. To do that, we treat the physique like a sculpture in progress. By building up certain areas, we can create an illusion of a smaller waist, greater width, etc. But Gunter is never going to look exactly like Chris and Chris will never look exactly like Gunter. I appreciate all the pros because they all work very hard. They have different genetics, so the end results are all different and this is why we have such a wide variety of physiques.
Just so you don't think I'm dodging the question, I will tell you that I like to see a perfect blend of size and symmetry. Right now, I don't see anyone who has the best of both. The last man I remember who did have that perfect mix was eight-time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney. Lee was a massive man. By his final contest he was 5-11 and 250 pounds ripped. He had awesome shape and lines, and a tiny waist- the man could do that vacuum pose just like Frank Zane! Of course, if he were to compete in 2004, his relative lack of size would probably hurt him going up against guys like Ronnie and Jay. But who is to say he wouldn't be able to add more mass and still retain his amazing lines and shape? You can't accurately compare champions from different eras in any sport, because science and technology improve the athletes as the years go by. But so far, I think Lee Haney has been the physique I personally felt looked the best. Again, I want to emphasize that I respect and appreciate all the pros competing today.
You have seen a whole lot of bodybuilders get ready for shows. So many of them seem to look much better a week or two before the show than they do when they actually get on stage, judging by a lot of photos and videos I've seen. What are some of the things that go wrong at the last minute that cause these poor guys and girls to lose things like their fullness or their cuts?
Welcome to bodybuilding in the year 2004. First, let's look at the standards these dedicated athletes are held to. On the day of the contest, they are expected to be big and full, yet with as close to zero body fat as possible. But that's only part of what he or she needs to be considered "in shape." The bodybuilder must also get on stage with all the subcutaneous water flushed out from under the skin for a grainy, "dry" look where you can see every individual muscle fiber. The term a lot of the guys use now to describe this prized look is "peeled." Basically, you are supposed to look like your skin has been peeled away to Reveal the raw muscle tissue beneath, then spray-painted in flesh tones and oiled.
Believe me when I say that achieving this look is one of the most difficult aspects of being a successful bodybuilder. Some guys hit it once or twice in their careers, some never at all, and only a handful can consistently seem to get it right just about every time, like Dexter Jackson and the late Andreas Munzer. The fact is, striking this precarious balance of keeping the muscles full while at the same time having all the fat and water gone, is something that can only be maintained for a very brief period of time- really just a matter of hours. So, not only is it tremendously difficult to get the timing perfect so you look this way on stage the day of the show, it's common for a competitor to only get that look for either the prejudging or the night show. Aren't you always hearing about how so-and-so looked better at the prejudging, and so-and-so looks a lot tighter than he did in the day?
Obviously, the body fat levels of these men aren't changing that drastically in a matter of five or six hours. It usually comes down to water. So many things can affect how much or how little water you hold under the skin. Just a few are sodium, carbohydrates, electrolyte balance and various supplements the bodybuilders use. Even men who are regarded as experts in this specialty of last-minute water and carb manipulation, like MD's own Chad Nicholls, don't get it right 100 percent of the time. It's tricky business with a lot of biology and chemistry involved. Different bodybuilders will react differently to various types of foods and supplements, and it usually takes even Chad a couple of times working with a competitor before he can figure out how he responds and what is needed to dial him in right. But take it from someone who has worked with more than a couple of pro bodybuilders in this capacity: It's an enormous challenge to get the look that wins contests these days.
One thing that confuses me is training volume and recovery. Experts like Arthur Jones and the late Mike Mentzer claimed that the stronger and more advanced you become as a bodybuilder, the more rest you need, because you can train at a higher level of intensity than you could as a beginner. It seems most people believe the opposite, that the longer you've been training, the more training volume you can take. What's your view on this issue of recovery, volume and training experience?
Recovery is very much an individual matter that varies from person to person. We are all different in terms of how our bodies respond to physical workloads, but I think the human body can, in fact, become conditioned to training more and more frequently over time. This is why I think a lot of bodybuilders who came from other sports are able to tolerate more frequent workouts and higher training volumes. Anyone who competed in track, played football, or wrestled, for example, is no stranger to grueling practice sessions (akin to workouts) five or more days a week for periods of up to three hours. If you take someone else who has been sedentary his entire life and start him working out like a bodybuilder, he will get tired and stay sore longer, on average, than bodybuilders with an athletic background. They are just not used to so much physical activity.
In my own case, I began seriously bodybuilding after competing in gymnastics all through college. My upper body was very strong and well-developed from daily practices in which I was on the rings, pommel horse and doing floor routines. My legs, on the other hand, were not very strong or developed at all. I was determined to bring them up to match my upper body, and for the first year I trained them three times a week. Mike Mentzer would have fainted if he heard that and would say there was no way my legs could recover and grow training them so often. But the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. After a year of blasting my legs with squats, leg presses, leg curls, stiff-leg deadlifts, leg extensions and lunges three times a week, my legs were almost as developed as my upper body.
Another year and they were right there where they needed to be. I was training pretty much every day for a while and still made gains. Later, when I started incorporating more rest, I realized I had been overtraining, because all of a sudden I started putting mass on again. How fast do you recover? I don't know. You have to basically use trial and error to determine how much training is optimal for you. I can say that with most of the bodybuilders I work with, a four-on, one-off training split seems to be ideal. It's a good rotation that gives each muscle group five full days to recover before training, with a day off from the gym between cycles to allow full recovery of the body as a whole.
I am a 55-year-old male and have been training for over 10 years. Lately, I've noticed my left lat is smaller than my right lat. Please
advise me how to bring my left lat up to balance with my right.
Your problem is extremely common. In fact, it's very rare to see someone with perfectly symmetrical development of all muscle groups from left to right sides. Often the asymmetry is simply a result of the muscle on one side being of a slightly different shape than the other side, or having a slightly longer or shorter tendon insertion. Usually, the difference is very tough to spot unless you really look for it, but I have known guys with one biceps that was peaked and another that wasn't. Even the great Arnold had one biceps that was peaked better than the other.
Another reason this type of asymmetry can occur is related to your nervous system. One side of your body may have a more efficient neuromuscular connection than the other, which means the muscle can produce more force and get better contractions from your training. When someone suffers a stroke or nerve damage, it's very common to see muscles on one side of their body atrophy and become weaker. Some have speculated that this is what happened to Jay Cutler, causing his right arm and leg to be so much smaller than the left ones at the recent Arnold Classic. I am not sure it's true; only Jay, his doctor and close friends and family would know if there is any truth to that. There is also a theory that blood supply has something to do with imbalanced development, that one muscle group or even a muscle on one side of your body may not have the same volume of blood available due to the veins and arteries being asymmetrical. Whatever the case happens to be with you, I have run across it many times over the years with various clients.
Ready for some good news? This problem is not so hard to fix at. All you need to do is structure your back training in such a way that the left side of your latissimus dorsi receives proper stimulation to grow, while the right side is kept at its current size with bare maintenance training.
Here is the workout I want you to do starting the next time you train back. You will begin with single-arm movements that will target only the left side of your lats. Drag a flat or seated bench over to the lat pull-down machine and set it down to the right of the machine's seat. Attach a stirrup handle, the one normally used for cable crossovers for the chest, to the upper pulley. What we are going to do now is create an angle that will direct all the focus to the lower portion of the muscle, where it needs to go to "lengthen" the lat on that side. Obviously, you can't really change your muscle insertion points, but it's all about creating an illusion by selectively building up certain areas.
Now you are seated with your left arm grasping the cable at a diagonal angle toward your body. Keeping your elbow in front of you, lean back slightly and pull down and in, feeling the movement in the lower lat. Do four sets of 10-12 reps here. Next up are one-arm dumbbell rows using only the left arm. Pull the dumbbell up and back toward your waist, taking a second to flex your left lat hard at the top of each rep. Another four sets of 10-12 should be done with those. Now that the left side of your back has been pre-fatigued, go ahead and do just two sets each of barbell rows and standard lat pull-downs to the front for 10-12 reps each. This will be enough to maintain the size on the right side of your back, while forcing the tired left side to keep up. You shouldn't be going as heavy on these two exercises as you typically do. Keep this routine up, and within a few weeks you should start seeing an improvement on that left lat. Depending on how much smaller the left side is right now than the right, it should take you anywhere from six months to a year to get them both even.
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