I used to compete back in the ‘80s and into the early ‘90s, but I got really caught up with my business after that and quit training seriously for almost 10 years. I would work out a few times a month, but with nowhere near the weights and intensity of the old days. Needless to say, I look nothing like I used to. Now my business is doing very well and I'm thinking about getting back into shape and doing a Master's show. I'm now 45 years old and not sure if I still have it in me. Do you think I could look good again at my age after such a long layoff? I am writing to you because I know you are also over 40. You motivate me quite a bit because you still look great.

Thank you for the compliment. I am actually 50 years old now, a whole half century! I haven't competed since I was 42, back at the 1995 Master's Olympia show in Atlanta, where I took fourth place and Sonny Schmidt won. But you know what? I could still be competing right now if I wanted to. I am a lot more interested in my training business and other ventures these days, but I don't doubt for one second that I could whip my body back into prime condition again in just a few months if I set my mind to it.

Are you noticing a recurring theme with what I'm saying? Age really is just a number, and it can limit what you are able to accomplish only if you allow it to in your mind. I have known men and women as young as 30 or 35 who had the idea that they were too old to get in shape or get back in shape. How ridiculous is that? I have also known men and women well into their fifties and sixties who were in phenomenal shape and could run circles around a lot of people half their age. It's all in the attitude. If you really believe being 45 years old means you can't train very hard and that your body won't respond and change, you have already lost the battle. Granted, there are certain concessions one may have to make at times, but this usually has more to do with your history of injuries, how active you've been and how healthy your joints are.

I still see Robby Robinson, who is a few years older than me, pulling 600-pound deadlifts for his manta-ray back. Robby has always taken care to warm up and is meticulous about his form, which is why he has remained virtually injury-free all these years. The guy has been training his butt off since the late 1960s! You may be in a different situation. Maybe you trained with very sloppy form in your younger years and abused your joints and connective tissues. In a case like that, I would advise you to use more moderate weights and focus on getting a great pump and burn in your muscles with precise form and a slightly slower rep speed. Can you look good again? I have no doubt that you can if you really apply yourself and stop worrying about middle age being some sort of disability. Go get ‘em, youngster!

I visited LA for a week last year and trained at Gold's Venice. I know this may sound like stalking, but I actually followed you from room to room on two different days to watch you train a couple of clients and try to pick up some new ideas. Since chest is my weakest body part, I really paid attention when you were putting one of them through a chest workout. Why is it that you only have people lower their presses about halfway down? Don't the muscles need a full range of motion? I have been touching the bar to my chest for flat and incline barbell presses since I started training because that's how I was taught to do it. Have I been doing it wrong, or is it just that the pros you train can get away with half reps?

You're not the first person to follow me around that gym and spy on my training methods, believe me! First of all, the pros are just like anyone else in terms of needing to use proper form on all the exercises for best results.  Anyone who knows me or has watched me train clients knows that I'm a stickler for good form and will not hesitate to tell even the biggest man if he isn't doing something right. I earn my money by being the boss and calling the shots during our sessions.

 As for what you consider "half reps" on the pressing movements for the chest, I am convinced that doing the top two-thirds of the range of motion is actually much more productive than touching the chest as you've been doing.  The reason lies in muscle tension. When you lower the bar or dumbbells all the way down as far as you are able to, you inevitably relax the pecs. You can't help it, this is just how the human anatomy is designed. Relaxing any muscle while you're training it is never a good thing. For one thing, you will fail to deliver the maximum intensity to the muscle; for another thing, you'll expose yourself to a greater risk of injury by forcing the connective tissues to assume the full burden of the weight as you reverse the motion at the bottom of each rep. 

That's why a majority of pec tears have happened when guys were bouncing the bar off their chest with a heavy weight. The muscle was totally relaxed at that split second and the tendons had to deal with all that weight and force. Instead, if you keep your chest tight and maintain that good tension on it by avoiding the bottom one-third of the rep, you will be amazed at how much more you feel your pecs working and how much better results you get. I am willing to bet that if you switch to doing your presses my way, you should be seeing some new growth in your chest in under a month. I'm sure it's been a lot longer than that since you saw any improvement there, right? This technique is also very useful for overhead shoulder presses. Give it a try. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I don't really like free weights and I use mostly machines in my training. I have heard a few experts like Dorian Yates say that weight is weight, and the muscle has no idea whether it's lifting a barbell or weights on a Hammer Strength or Cybex machine. Why are you so enamored of free weights? Is it just because you are so old-school that you refuse to accept that machines can work, too?

I have nothing against machines, and in fact, I have all my clients incorporate machines and cable into their training. But- and this is critical- the base of each workout has to be on compound free weight movements like bench presses, squats, deadlifts, barbell rows and military presses. I will never stray from these exercises or from free weights because they flat-out work like nothing else does. I have been around a very long time and have been able to really scrutinize the way various training variables can impact a physique.

 A certain famous trainer here in Venice who is now deceased used to have his clients use almost entirely machines. I am not naming him because the man is no longer here to defend himself or his methods. He was a big believer in the superiority of machines over free weights, having been a protégé of a very prominent inventor and equipment manufacturer back in the ‘70s. His clients got stronger, which is how he preferred to measure progress, but I didn't see too many gain a whole lot of size. He did train a couple of pros, but not for very long, as they were not entirely satisfied with their results. Keep in mind that as competitive bodybuilders, their goal was to improve their physiques in terms of size and shape. If they went from using 200 pounds on a leg extension to 300 pounds, but their quads looked exactly the same, they did not consider that a successful result as this trainer did.

Bodybuilding is judged on physiques and it is not a weightlifting contest. These guys invariably went back to the free weights that had built their physiques and allowed them to become pros in the first place. A lot of machine fans like to point out that Dorian Yates won several Mr. Olympia titles using mostly machines, but anyone who has read his book or watched his video knows that Dorian still used plenty of free weights. In many cases where he used machines, it was actually a preventative measure against re-injuring things like his hip or shoulder, both of which he had surgeries on. 

Bodybuilders who train heavy and intense on the free weight basics have a completely different look than those who do not. I think one of the main reasons Ronnie Coleman has been so dominant as Mr. Olympia is that he has always remained faithful to the basic, compound lifts and he trains like a beast.  The guy could probably maintain his size by using more machines, but he knows the powerful look of muscular density and fullness that he is known for would disappear. I can always pick out the competitors at any show who don't use enough compound free weights in their training. They have a softer, flatter look to their muscles rather than hard and round. Machines are a great complement to free weights, but you are really missing out if you make them the core of your training. 

I know you have your guys doing all kinds of drop sets and supersets, but I am doubtful whether or not this is the best way to build size. I have always heard that straight sets with a solid couple of minutes rest between them allow you to use heavier weights and thus build more muscle. 

To a point, training the way you describe will deliver gains, but only for beginners and intermediates in bodybuilding. Once you get past those levels, you really need to crank up the intensity in your workouts to keep improving.  Your muscles really don't know how much weight they're lifting. They only know stress. So, if I have you do drop sets on the bench press starting with 315, then peel a plate off each side for 225, and finally 135, that 135 is gonna feel pretty damned heavy once you get to it. And by the end of that set, your chest is going to be aching and tight like you wouldn't believe, and pumped up like crazy. My goal when I train a client at the advanced level, such as an NPC Nationals competitor or IFBB pro, is to totally exhaust the muscle, to wipe it out and hit true failure. When I have a guy train chest, for example, he shouldn't even be able to do a few push-ups or dips once I'm done with him. That's why these people come to me, because they know they can't train anywhere near as hard on their own.

 Nobody likes pain (well, I guess there are some who do) and the vast majority of bodybuilders don't train anywhere near as far into the pain zone as they are capable of when they work out on their own. Once it starts burning pretty bad, they just say to themselves, "I can stop now; I'll just do another set in a couple of minutes and that will be good enough." Gunter Schlierkamp told me he never, ever trained as hard as he does with me, and he believes it's what allowed him to make such dramatic improvements leading up to the 2002 Olympia where he broke into the top five after never cracking the top 10 before. He used to take his time and rest a lot between sets.

Straight sets are just too easy to cause a muscle to grow in an advanced trainer. Their muscles are quite used to them and thus, there is no compelling reason for them to adapt and grow. But if you start incorporating drop sets, supersets and forced reps, making it your goal to annihilate the muscles when you work them, you will start seeing results again. Look, if the guys I work with don't see results, they would just stop writing checks to me and go train on their own or with another trainer. I have many, many years of experience in how to best stimulate muscle growth and help bodybuilders win contests by improving on weak points, and this is what works.

Please, please help me! My arms are terrible. It's really embarrassing because I have very good thickness in my chest, shoulders and back. I weigh a pretty hard 240 at 5-foot-7, but my arms are only 17 inches. It looks like some flesh-eating virus like in that movie "Cabin Fever" has been inside my bi's and tri's gnawing away. Here's the split I am currently following. Please give me some tips and I will be so grateful.

Day one:                   chest and triceps

Day two:                   back and biceps

Day three:                 legs

Day four:                   OFF

Day five:                    shoulders, calves, abs

Day six:                     OFF, repeat

This one is actually pretty easy to fix, since you provided me with your workout split. When you have a weak body part, the solution is to prioritize it.  Right now, your biceps and triceps don't have a fighting chance to grow. The first big problem I see is that you are training triceps after chest and biceps after back. For a bodybuilder whose arms are lagging, this is just about the worst thing you can do. By the time you finish training chest, your triceps are already worn out from all the pressing exercises. And after the whole barrage of deadlifts, rowing movements and pull-downs or chins you do for your back, trust me, your biceps are fried.

Some guys just say, okay, well let me do biceps after chest then, and triceps after back. It's still a big mistake because your energy reserves have been depleted. I don't care how much coffee you drink or ECA pills you pop, you will not be able to generate the intensity you require for growth because torso muscles are quite exhausting to train if you do it right. For this reason, I highly recommend you begin training arms on a day all their own. I have two more suggestions to make sure you get the best results. First, I would train arms on a day after a full day of rest away from the gym so you are fresh and raring to go.  Second, I would alternate starting with biceps one week and triceps the next, or I would alternate between biceps and triceps exercises during the actual workout. Here is the split I would like to see you do, and a sample workout that should have your shirtsleeves stretched tighter very soon!

Day one:                    arms

Day two:                     legs

Day three:                  chest

Day four:                    OFF  

Day five:                    shoulders

Day six:                      back

Say seven:                OFF, repeat

Sample Workout

EZ-curl bar preacher curls                         4 sets of 10-12 reps

Close-grip bench press                              4 sets of 10-12 reps

Incline dumbbell curls                                4 sets of 10-12 reps

Decline bench lying bar extensions        4 sets of 10-12 reps

Hammer dumbbell curls                             4 sets of 10-12 reps

Overhead cable extensions                       4 sets of 10-12 reps