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Trainer of Champions - June 2004 |
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Written by Charles Glass
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Thursday, 26 April 2007 |
I love your column, especially the no-nonsense approach to training you seem to have. It is definitely inspiring. I'm an officer in the Marine Corps. I returned from Iraq last July. When I left, I was around 210 pounds at about 10-12 percent fat. When I returned, I was down to 167. You can imagine how devastated I was, not to mention how shitty it was over there. Now, I'm about as lean as I was when I left, but I only weigh about 200-205. I am still weaker in my chest and shoulders, but my legs are stronger, as well as my back. This all came back in less than three months with good food, rest and training. Nothing has changed- no gains at all in the past three months! I'm pissed off to say the least, but will not give up. By the way, I am 5'10" and naturally very skinny. Definitely an ectomorph.
Here is my split:
Reps Sets
Monday = Heavy Legs
Squats 15,12,8,6,4 5
Leg press 15,12,12,10,8 5
Good mornings 10-12 5
Hyperextensions 10-12 5
Standing calf 15 5
Leg press calf 15 5
Tuesday = Back (rows)
Bent-over barbell 15,12,12,10,10 5
T-bar 15,12,12,10,10 5
Cable rows 15,12,12,10,10 5
Dumbbell rows 15,12,12,10,10 5
Wednesday = Chest and Shoulders
Hammer Strength 15,12,10,10,8 5
Incline
Dumbbell Press 15,12,12,10,10 5
Bench press 10-12 5
Seated dumbbell press 15,12,12,10,10 5
Side lateral raises 10-12 5
Bent-over side lat 10-12 5
raises
Thursday = Light Legs
Hack squat 20,15,15,12,12 5
Leg press 20,15,15,12,12 5
Stiff leg deads 10-12 5
Standing calf 15 5
Leg press calf 15 5
Friday = Back (pull-downs)
Deadlifts 12,10,8,8,6 5
Chins until failure for 50 reps
Pull-downs 15,12,12,10,10 5
Pullovers 15,12,12,10,10 5
Saturday = Arms
Close-grip bench 15,12,12,10,10 5
Overhead cambered 15,12,12,10,10 5
bar extension
Overhead cable 15,12,12,10,10 5
extension
Dumbbell skull crush 15,12,12,10,10 5
Preacher curl 15,12,12,10,10 5
Straight bar curl 10,8,8,6,6 5
Diet-wise, here is a typical day:
Breakfast: 5 eggs, 2 pieces of toast, 1 glass of milk, 1 orange
Meal 2: 1 cup brown rice, 1 chicken breast
Meal 3: 1 can tuna, 2 sliced whole grain bread, 1 glass milk
Meal 4: 1 cup brown rice, 1 chicken breast
Meal 5: 1 can tuna, 2 sliced whole grain bread, 1 glass milk
Meal 6: 2 top round steaks (1/2 lb), 1 glass milk, 1 apple
Meal 7: 3 cups cottage cheese, 1 orange
Sorry I wrote so much, but I wanted you to get an accurate picture of my situation. What should I do to get out of this rut? Where am I going wrong here?
Well I must admit, you sure did write a lot, but you know what? Providing more than enough information is always a better idea than not giving enough, so I commend you. So many times I receive questions that are difficult to answer because the person hasn't given me a comprehensive picture of where they are in terms of their build and their training and nutrition programs. Perhaps your military background has something to do with your being so thorough. Because you took the time to run down your whole program, I can now offer you my assessment of why you are at a standstill in your muscle gains.
In a nutshell, you are overtraining- and overtraining badly. The only person I would recommend follow such a demanding weight training program of six consecutive days would be an elite competitive bodybuilder, and even then, only if their lifestyle would allow for proper recovery. Essentially, the ideal situation would be for a person not to work, to be able to sleep a solid eight or nine hours a night and have an afternoon nap of one to two hours daily, as well. Of course, the addition of sports enhancement products to boost recovery would most likely be necessary to facilitate complete recuperation from one day to the next (though I want to make it very clear I do not advocate the use of illegal and possibly dangerous drugs). And even under those ideal circumstances, only a small percentage of bodybuilders would be able to maintain this regimen indefinitely without overtraining and hitting a plateau.
Now, let's look at your situation. You were in the Marine Corps and no doubt had a full array of duties and tasks to perform as part of your job. That may have even involved some physical labor, which would add to your "recovery debit." You identify yourself as an ectomorph, which would further lead me to believe that recovering from tough workouts is not a simple matter for you. Most ectomorphs I know seem to need more off days than their mesomorph and endomorph counterparts. All this leads me to conclude that it is definitely your weight training schedule that is to blame for your inability to regain your former body weight. What I would advise you to do is to change your split to incorporate more rest time. Something like this would be more suited to recovery and growth:
Monday: Chest and triceps
Tuesday: Back
Thursday: Legs
Friday: Shoulders and biceps
You will note that I have consolidated your training days for legs and back. There is no need for you to train your legs and back twice a week, particularly in light of the fact that you said they were your stronger body parts. Do both your rowing and pull-down movements for back in the same workout, just reduce the overall volume so you aren't doing more than 15-20 work sets total. As for legs, you could do the heavy workout one week and the light session the following week, in alternating fashion. One last training note: Take a full week off from the gym before starting up the routine I have given you. Trust me, your body can use a break right now. You will come back feeling more energetic and ready to blast the iron. And please don't be tempted to add any more training to your routine than those four days. Your body wants to grow, but if you don't give it time to recover, that will never happen.
As far as your diet goes, it looks pretty good to me. If anything, you may want to consider boosting your total protein intake with an additional 20 grams of whey protein on top of each of those meals. I would also strongly suggest supplementing with Creatine monohydrate and L-Glutamine, which will enhance your lifting performance and your recovery from your workouts. I am confident that with your body having a chance to regenerate, you will get back to your former body weight soon and then surpass it.
And finally, I would like to express my admiration and gratitude for your serving the United States of America so valiantly in Iraq. I know I speak for many Americans when I say that. And I am very happy to see you made it back home safe and sound. Semper Fi!
I am 18 years old (senior in high school) and track is about to start in a week. I have been working out very intensely three to four times a week and I have been gaining two to three pounds a week (taking in 200-250 grams of protein and 4,500-5,000 calories a day), but that is about to change due to track practice. It starts at 3:30 and ends at 5:30. I'm doing the long jump and the high jump. If it helps, my height is 6'4" and my weight is 200 pounds with 7.2 percent body fat. I still want to be making gains in the gym with strength and gaining weight. What type of workout would you suggest? I'm willing to eat in class; my teachers don't mind.
Congratulations on the progress you've been making thus far. You didn't say for how long you have been gaining two or three pounds a week, but that is an incredibly rapid rate of body weight acquisition. (A year of this type of gaining would result in an additional 150 pounds!). Then again, at 18 years old, you are right smack dab in the middle of your lifetime peak of natural testosterone and growth hormone production. It's a perfect time to gain muscle without getting fat.
Let me briefly address your diet for just a moment. If you are indeed taking in 5,000 calories a day and 250 grams of protein, that means only 1,000 of those calories, or 20 percent, are coming from protein. Remember that a gram of protein or carbohydrate is four calories and a fat gram equals nine calories. I am curious as to how the remainder of your caloric intake breaks down. What I suspect is that you may be guessing your daily calorie total too high. Many times, clients tell me they are eating 5,000-6,000 calories a day. Then, when I have them write down everything they eat in a day, down to the exact serving portions, and do the math, sometimes they are barely eating more than 3,000 calories. My recommendation would be to keep a food diary or log at least for a couple of weeks so you can be certain you have a more accurate picture of how much you are eating and what your macronutrient percentages are.
Personally, for those who train intensely with weights with the goal of gaining muscle, I like to see at least 30 percent of daily calories coming from protein, often closer to 40. The calorie total is something you need to be concerned with as you start your season in track. You are about to start 10 hours a week of track practice, which will obviously put higher nutritional demands on your body, as you will be burning a great deal more calories than usual. With your type of build and metabolism, eating is going to be more critical to your results than your weight training. By all means, if your teachers have no problems with you eating in class, take advantage of that and do your best to eat every two to three hours during the school day. Easy meals to carry and eat would be something like turkey and cheese sandwiches on whole wheat, or even good old peanut butter and jelly, along with a baked potato and plenty of water. Protein bars, apples and bananas can also be good snacks to munch on. Be very sure you have a large dinner as soon after track practice as possible, and try to get another meal in before bedtime.
Now, on to your training. You have a bit of a conflict in that you really can't train your legs the way a bodybuilder does while you are in the track season. You would be worthless in your long jump and high jump events if your legs were sore from high-rep squats, leg presses and hack squats. I would train legs once a week, perhaps only on Friday evening, so they will be fully recovered by Monday's practice (but not if you have a meet Saturday morning!). Stick with basic squats, leg presses, stiff-leg deadlifts and lunges, but keep the reps fairly low for legs, in the six to 10 range. Train only to failure and do no forced reps, drop sets or negatives. Save all that fun stuff for when the track season is over. As for the rest of your body, I would also stick to basic movements like bench presses, barbell rows, military presses, chin-ups and dips. You can split your upper body up any way you like, but I don't think you should be working out more than three times a week, including your leg day. An easy way to accomplish this would be to have a "push day" and a "pull day'"once each week, separated by at least 48 hours. Here's an example:
Push Day
Bench press 4 sets 8-12 reps
Military press 4 sets 8-12 reps
Dips 4 sets 8-12 reps (add weight if needed)
Skull crushers 3 sets 8-12 reps
Pull Day
Chin-ups 4 sets 8-12 reps (add weight if needed)
Barbell rows 4 sets 8-12 reps
Barbell shrugs 3 sets 8-12 reps
Alternate dumbbell curls 3 sets 8-12 reps
Don't be discouraged if you aren't able to keep gaining at the same rate you did prior to track season. Many athletes focus on gaining size, strength and power in the off-season and find it best to simply try to maintain during the competitive season. Good luck!
I have been doing six to eight reps for the last three or four weeks. My strength seems to be increasing in many of my lifts. When should I mix in some light days or 12-15-rep days? I've considered doing two body parts a day, training one heavy and one light and then alternating that the following
week. Do you have any thoughts on this? I have cut my carbs down and upped my cardio, but was still lifting heavy to add some mass as I lower my
body fat. Just wanted to know if I needed to continue as I was or maybe
mix in the light days.
It took me a little while there to catch on as to what exactly your goals are. It sounds like you are trying to gain muscle, but your primary goal at present is to lose body fat. This leads me to believe that your questions about using higher reps and having heavy and light days is in reference to how this can potentially affect your fat loss efforts. You should know that your weight training has little impact on this process. The myth that higher reps help you get ripped is an old one that will probably never die. Weight training can only do three things in terms of your body composition: build muscle mass, maintain muscle mass, or cause you to lose muscle mass (as in the case of overtraining or doing excessively high repetitions with very light weights).
The only other way weight training relates to your body fat is that muscle tissue is metabolically demanding. The more lean muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn at rest. That's why a 250-pound bodybuilder can sit at a desk for eight hours and expend 1,000 calories (this is a purely hypothetical number just to illustrate the phenomenon), while another man who is an obese 250 pounds with very little muscle mass may only burn 200 calories in that same time frame at rest.
So, in regard to getting leaner, you are on the right track by reducing your carbohydrate intake and increasing your cardio. I would be sure to increase your protein and healthy fats accordingly to preserve muscle mass and hopefully, facilitate some more mass gains.
Should you mix in higher reps or incorporate light training days? That all depends on how your current six to eight reps is working. You said you are getting stronger, which is a good sign, but you failed to mention whether or not you noticed any changes in your physique. My feeling is that you do need to use different rep ranges for best results. You can go about that in several different ways. Many bodybuilders perform both low and higher reps in the same workouts, pyramiding up in weight and down in reps as their sets progress for an exercise. Others will train heavy with lower reps for designated periods, then switch to more moderate weights and higher reps for a while. And still others alternate heavy and light workouts for each muscle group every time they train them.
Which way is best? That's impossible to say, because I have seen people get excellent results all three ways. A lot of it has to do with your preference and what works best for you. Some guys, like Dorian Yates and Ronnie Coleman, thrive on training super heavy all the time. There are no light days for them. Others, like Flex Wheeler and Paul Dillett, seem to do better with more moderate weights and higher reps. You need to experiment a bit in the gym to see what feels right for you and what delivers the best results. You may find that higher reps are just what you need to grow, or you may be someone who can constantly go heavy and get results that way. That's why bodybuilding is a journey, not a destination!
I've been back in the weight game for about seven months now after a four-year layoff. I've started to notice that my left pec is hanging lower or becoming more pronounced (the line underneath it is more defined) than my right. But my right side is definitely stronger. This is really freaking me out. I just noticed it about two weeks ago and at first I thought it was fat being deposited unevenly since I just started a bulking cycle. My chest routine consists of:
1. Flat bench
2. Incline dumbBell
3. Cable flyes
All for three sets each. I suppose I could scrap the barbell bench and move to a dumbbell bench, but I'm not sure if that's enough. I don't want to make this worse. I feel like all my hard work is going to make me look
disproportioned. Please help.
First, congratulations on coming back to weight training after so much time away. Statistically, most guys who are out of the gym more than a year or two never return. So, you obviously have tenacity. Now, on to your problem.
The issue of imperfect proportions is extremely common. Even among the world's best professional bodybuilders, who are supposed to be the ideal in terms of symmetry and proportion, close study would show this is not always the case. Almost everyone has one arm or leg that is larger than the other or the muscle has a different shape or insertion length on one side. In your case, one side of your pectoralis major is developing faster than the other side. You told me that the left side is better developed, even though the right side is stronger. This doesn't make sense on the surface, does it? But again, it's a phenomenon I have seen many times over the years.
I assume you are right-handed, as most people are. That means your right arm is far more coordinated and has superior neuromuscular efficiency than the left side. So, your right pec should be the larger one, correct? Not exactly. What happens is that the left side, being less neurologically efficient, has to work much harder to balance the weight and contract the muscle than the right side. This greater effort has resulted in greater muscular development. In nearly all cases such as yours, the solution is to switch to using only dumbbells for your presses. You expressed a concern that the flat dumbbell bench press may not be enough in comparison to using a barbell for the same lift. I can assure you that dumbbell presses are every bit as productive, if not more so, than the barbell. And in a case such as yours, continuing to use a barbell is only going to exacerbate the situation.
Switching to dumbbells should alleviate the situation, but if it doesn't, I do have a back-up plan for you. What I would suggest is to do just a couple of sets of presses with both arms and then do the remainder using only the right side. You could use dumbbells and I would also try several of the unilateral pressing machines made by Hammer Strength. That way, you could maintain the size in the left side of your chest while bringing the right side up to proportion. And don't worry, I have had clients with very noticeable differences from side to side, and nearly all of them were able to bring everything in balance to their satisfaction within a short time.
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