Written by Hany Rambod
10 October 2006

 

I was very impressed by your two clients at the last USA, Chris Cook and Mike Dragna. I'm starting to really believe in this whole "pro creator" thing! The Nationals are coming up, so I'm wondering who you are helping get ready for the last pro qualifier of 2003?

I have three very good guys going into the Nationals, so I will break it down and discuss each one individually. Just a reminder that as of this column we are about five weeks out from the Nationals, so to say the excitement is building would be an understatement.

 

Paul Smith - Middleweight

Paul is from southern California and has been competing for many years. He took second place at the recent USA to Jimmy Canyon, who in that case had superior shape and equal conditioning. Jimmy is the favorite now to take the middleweight class at the Nationals, but there are some other excellent competitors that I know of who are also capable of winning. Jose Raymond from Massachusetts, who won the lightweights at the 2001 Nationals but didn't take his pro card, has moved up to middleweight at only 5-foot-3. Then there are two Floridians, Pablo Mills and Jorge "Chic" Betancourt, who will also be on stage with Paul. Jorge was the Teenage National Champion and also won the Southern States, and he's making his comeback after 11 years away from the sport. 

Paul is definitely going into the lion's den in Miami, up against some very good talent. He and I had spoken several times over the past couple of years about working together, but we weren't able to coordinate our schedules until this year. After the USA, we both put aside some time to meet down in the LA area at last. As I always like to do, we put a game plan together to discern his strengths and weaknesses. For the first time, Paul would be leaving his home turf on the West Coast and would be going up against some seasoned veterans on the East Coast. Conditioning has never been a problem for Paul.  We decided he needed to work more on his fullness and on bringing up his arms, legs and back. Additionally, we would improve on the condition he was already known for and take it to the next level. 

At five weeks out as I write this, Paul is 191 pounds at 5-foot-5 with striations starting to show in the glutes. Most of this came from adjusting his diet more precisely. He had never really done much with carb cycling, having high-carb and low-carb days, and the results have been very pleasing. And get this- Paul had never done cardio before in his contest prep! Since he had always had a super-fast metabolism, he never saw the point. But I explained to him that cardio isn't just for fat burning, it also potentiates growth by enhancing protein synthesis. Very few people are aware of this and consider cardio a purely catabolic activity when muscle gain is the goal. Paul started doing moderate amounts of cardio and he saw that what I told him was true.

 Another thing we adjusted was to have Paul cut way back on the thermogenic supplements he was using. Due to his naturally fast metabolism, they were eating up his hard-earned muscle. Paul had been using them year-round, just like many bodybuilders these days. We held off on introducing them into the program until the final four weeks, and he is now fuller and thicker- looking than ever before at this stage in his prep. We focused on high-volume training to bring about more of that round look to the muscles (see my December, '03 column for more info on that technique), and we are very confident about his chances this time.

 

Mark Perry - Heavyweight

Mark Perry is a heavyweight competitor from Indiana who called me the week after the last USA. He was very disappointed at how he had done, since he had failed to make the top 15. Mark wanted to know if I was available to help him for the upcoming Nationals just four months away. I asked him to send me some photos to evaluate and we could start the process of formulating a game plan. As I scrutinized his physique, I came to the conclusion that his number one priority needed to be increasing the size of his back. Mark has a great chest and when he turned around for back shots on stage, the deficiency just killed him in the judges' eyes. We had a serious discussion about whether or not the Nationals was too soon for him to compete again, but we decided that he could make significant improvements to his back in that short time frame if he really focused and was willing to make the effort required. 

The program included a lot of heavy, back-to-basics training like we did with Mike Dragna to bring up his quads for the USA, where he turned pro (see my November, '03 column). To bring up his back we had Mark do a lot of good old-fashioned deadlifts, bent barbell rows and one-arm dumbbell rows.

The second area we are working on is his conditioning. Mark expressed a desire to duplicate the completely peeled look Mike Dragna had displayed at the USA. I knew that if he came in with even a 20 percent improvement to his back and came in 20 percent tighter, it would de-emphasize his weak body part. For his nutrition, we put him on a low-carb diet for the very first time and his body seemed to respond favorably almost immediately to a higher fat intake and very low carbs. At six weeks out he was looking right on target. In the past, Mark has fluctuated on stage between 214 and 218 at 5-foot-6. This year, we're shooting for about 215. I am confident we can have him right at the top of the heavies at 225 by his next show.

 

Bill Wilmore - Super-heavyweight

Bill Wilmore, from the Miami Beach area, has been a national-level competitor for the better part of a decade. He got my number through another one of my clients, Idrise Ward-El, a friend of his. Bill approached me after the 2002 Nationals where he placed tenth in the super-heavyweight division, hoping to use my experience to improve for the 2003 USA. It's important to note that when a bodybuilder contacts me, he is already willing to listen to what I say. In my line of work, that's half the equation right there- having the right state of mind to be receptive to new ideas. If I tell someone to do two hours of cardio a day (just a random example), I want him to say, "What kind? and not whine, "Aw, do I have to?" If someone is not going to listen and trust in what I tell them to do, we are just both wasting each other's time. That's not what I'm about. 

So I had Bill send me photos and I took a good look at his physique to assess what could be better. His arms were a seriously lagging body part (as you can see in the front relaxed pose at 20 weeks out) and his legs needed to be larger, as well. He went to work on them, but we came to a fork in the road this past February. We needed to decide whether to start his diet in April for the USA, or to instead keep going with the off-season training and continue to bring up the arms and legs and create better balance in his overall look. The choice was made to go with the growth route, as we both felt making those weak points into strong points would be in his best interest. So far, so good. The pictures I have here were taken at 20 and then at six weeks out. You can clearly see how much his arms improved, and his legs, as well. In the past, his arms really detracted from the impact of many poses, but with the high-volume training along with training them twice a week, that will no longer be the case.

As for nutrition, we discovered Bill was sensitive to various foods that made him retain a lot of water and slowed him down. He turned out to have some moderate food allergies that I'll go into in greater detail once the Nationals are over. I don't want any of his rival super-heavies slipping him some of those foods right before the show! Basically, you could say we did a total remodeling of his nutrition and supplementation program. I started him using a much higher amount of L-Glutamine than ever before (again, I will reveal the specifics next time), and upped his protein consumption considerably. We also changed the source from cheap casein to higher-quality whey isolate. At this writing, as you can see from the photos of Bill six weeks out from the Nationals, he is 265 pounds and right on target to be in his best condition ever. For many years, he has been floundering somewhere around eighth to tenth place. I don't see that happening this time.

 

Other Guys Definitely in the Running

Aside from my three clients, there are also a few great competitors who will be in the mix for pro cards. Two guys in the super-heavyweights are particularly capable of casting off their amateur status this fall. MD's own Dave Palumbo is riding a wave of momentum after taking second at the USA and Nationals over the past year. He will have his hands full with Mat Duvall. Mat's problem areas in the past have been a lack of back detail and not enough outer thigh sweep. I know Mat has trained much like a powerlifter in the past and after speaking to him several times leading up to this show, he said he was going for that much "fuller and rounder look," which will in turn help him with those problem areas. Oh, and rumor has it that Mat's going "Ronnie Coleman style" this year coming into the show with the shaved head look. If it's good enough for five-time Mr. Olympia, I'm sure it's good enough for Mat! For the Nationals he's again working with Chad Nicholls who plans to bring him in at a dry and shredded 265!

The heavyweights will have a couple of veterans who could turn pro this time, too. Thomas "Freaky" Rieke is known for his shredded conditioning, but has been criticized for needing more back thickness to be worthy of graduating to the IFBB. Tom has had a full year to improve on that and should bring a much-improved package to Miami. Then there's also Marcus Haley, who had to overcome a broken leg this past year. But if he has done so and brings in his usual package of great conditioning and impressive shape, Haley will be very hard to beat in the heavies. Last, but certainly not least, is a newcomer to the national level, Lionel Brown from California. Lionel took second to my client Mike Dragna at the recent USA and showed phenomenal potential. If Lionel can bring up his legs and get them just 10 percent harder, he could also win the class. 

The NPC Nationals, along with the NPC USA, represents the very best of amateur bodybuilding in the world. I believe all my clients will do well, but I would never be so brash as to predict victory for them. All I will say is that all three will look the best they have in their careers, and hopefully, that will be good enough. It looks to be a close competition among a group of awesome athletes, and may the best man win.

 

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