I had several real close friends on the freshman football team and one in particular, an outstanding linebacker from West Virginia, was very close to me. His name was Bob Snead.

Bob explained to me that weightlifting was his hobby, and that he did this exercising in the off-season to prepare himself for football. This seemed quite strange to me because through the years I had been warned that weightlifting would make you muscle-bound and ruin your athletic ability. Bob explained to me that this wasn’t true and that he had done it for years and attributed a lot of his football success to lifting weights.

His argument made sense to me, so I helped him set up his weights in a corner of the athletic building. He not only had assorted barbell plates but racks and benches. The next day Bob asked me if I would like to work out with him. Remembering with pleasure the times during my high school years when I had lifted various objects to test my strength, I was happy to take part in a workout, although I still had fears of becoming muscle-bound. I feared that there might be some truth in the stories I had been told by my coaches and other interested individuals. I joined Bob in the gym and proceeded to follow him through a workout. The first lift that he was going to do was the deep knee bend, or squat.

This was Bob’s favorite ex, so I helped him set up his weights in a corner of the athletic building. He not only had assorted barbell plates but racks and benches. The next day Bob asked me if I would like to work out with him. Remembering with pleasure the times during my high school years when I had lifted various objects to test my strength, I was happy to take part in a workout, although I still had fears of becoming muscle-bound. I feared that there might be some truth in the stories I had been told by my coaches and other interested individuals. I joined Bob in the gym and proceeded to follow him through a workout. The first lift that he was going to do was the deep knee bend, or squat.

This was Bob’s favorite exercise and he was quite good at it. He put a poundage on the bar (about 300 pounds) and did a couple of squats, then placed the bar back on the rack. He asked me with a smile if I would like to try, and to his amazement I did ten reps very easily. It was very evident that I could handle much more. Bob was very encouraging, saying that I had more leg and back strength than anyone he had ever seen.

I was fired up by his words and by the workout itself and made plans to join him lifting from that moment forward. Not only was I thrilled over the fact that I had natural strength, but it seemed that the weights satisfied a deep need in my nature. I got enormous satisfaction out of working out with the barbells. Until that point in my life nothing had given me such peace of mind and satisfaction.

Bob and I hadn’t been working out for more than three or four days when the head football coach surprised us one day with a visit. He came there not to observe, but really to condemn. Naturally with all the clanging of the barbells our workouts were no secret. The coach explained that weightlifting was not for good for us and would keep us from running fast or making any quick movements.

He said we were to stop or he would have to take our scholarships away. In his defense I should add that the position he was taking was not unique, but was a position most all athletic coaches took just those few years ago. He was sincere in his concern and really had our best interests at heart, wrongheaded though he was.

Naturally I was discouraged by our coach’s words and really felt that he knew more about athletics than my friend Bob. But Bob proceeded to convince me once again that the coach was wrong and explained that lifting simply got more done in less time. To be honest, Bob convinced me of something that I wanted to believe in, so his task was none to hard.

I gained strength so rapidly that it seemed unbelievable to me. From one workout to the next my strength would noticeably increase. We were quite handicapped in training now and had been forced to gather up some old wrestling mats, and even some old mattresses to cushion and quiet our weights so as not to alert the coaching staff downstairs.

During that time my schoolwork was really suffering, mainly because of lack of interest. I wasn’t really happy at Furman and I couldn’t seem to put my academic work into the right perspective. The feeling was not dissatisfaction with my particular college, but rather a desire to be doing something else. I felt this in a very real sense almost every day. I felt that my calling was elsewhere. Even my desire to play college football and eventually professional football was overcome by this overpowering desire to follow my interest in lifting. However, when I would think of a career in weightlifting, I realized that to become really successful I would have to give up college and football because of my coach’s attitude. The problem was that when this thought took charge of my mind I would feel rather foolish. How could I ever explain to anyone, especially my parents, that I wanted to quit school to lift weights? That I wanted to give up a full athletic scholarship and become a strongman? For about eight weeks a daily battle raged between my common sense and my heart’s desire. In my room at night my better judgment and common sense would overrule my desire, but every other day when Bob and I would take our workouts the desire would return and the battle would begin once more. No matter what my better judgment or common sense had to say, it still seemed right for me to become a competing weightlifter. I knew this could never be at Furman for I needed much equipment and more space to perform the overhead competitive lifts. Also, Bob and I were barely getting away with out workouts and we felt that out weights might be confiscated at any moment, along with out scholarships.

I remember so well the day that I made the final decision to leave school and devote my life to competition lifting. Not one minute had elapsed after I had made this decision before I felt extremely guilt-ridden. I would be letting so many people down – my high school coach, who had great confidence in me; my parents, who had sacrificed to allow me to pursue a higher education; and of course the coaching staff and my teammates. I realized that if I went to talk with my coaches about this decision they would either talk me out of it or cancel my scholarship on the grounds that I was mentally deranged.

So, late one night I packed all of my bags and left school before daylight the next morning. Perhaps this was not the most manly way to handle the situation, but I felt at the time that it was the best thing for me to do.

I hitchhiked from Greenville, South Carolina, to Toccoa, Georgia, and as I look back, I remember hoping that I wouldn’t get a quick ride home. I’m sure this feeling resulted from the fact that I was still feeling guilty about leaving school and I really hated to face my parents with the news that I was giving up my scholarship. My hopes went for naught, however, because one of the first cars that came by gave me a ride all the way to Toccoa.

I remember so well walking in the house and being greeted with real alarm by my mother, who feared that only sickness could have brought me home. When I told my parents that I had decided to give up college temporarily, they naturally wanted to know what I had in mind. The real shocker came when I told them that I wanted to be a weightlifter. Naturally they knew of no one who made a good living lifting weights, since there was no one in America who did, and they reacted just as most all parents would have. They felt that I was giving up a tremendous opportunity, choosing instead to pursue something which had no future whatsoever even if I did become successful in it.

Finally, however, they allowed me to follow through on my plans, with my solemn promise that I would enter college again next fall. Their understanding and assistance during this stage of my life meant more to me then and means more to me now than I am able to put into words.

My first problem up in Elizabethtown, Tennessee (where my father was then employed) was solved when I decided to use the garage for a gym. It was not being used for car storage but contained everything that one could imagine. After relocating lawnmowers, various washing machines and other appliances I found that I had enough room to place the equipment that I felt I needed. The real problem came up now: where would I get the weights? I investigated all the places where standard weights would possibly be available, and not only did they not have the heavy equipment that I would need but the price for such equipment was too staggering for me to even consider. Naturally I could not approach my parents on the venture, as I was determined to do it on my own. They kept me fed, clothed and housed and this in itself seemed more than generous to me then. It still does, in fact.

I began to visit all the junk and salvage yards in the area and the prospects for my gymnasium started looking a little better. I found that weights could be made out of old auto parts and other pieces of discarded machinery. I found that flywheels from automobile engines usually weighed around 35 pounds and could be used for lifts that did not take extreme precision and accuracy. Automobile drive shafts and truck axles made good bars. To supplement the weights that I could pick up from these salvage yards I poured many out of concrete. I would secure a bucket, barrel, box or anything that would serve as a mold, and then by putting a pipe through it and pouring it full of concrete I would have a large weight that I could slip on one of the drive shafts or axles. This surprisingly enough served my purpose, and after several weeks of raking and scraping through the scrap yards I had a well-equipped, though somewhat crude, gym.

I started training as soon as I got everything set that I actually needed to work out with. On launching this training program I put all my heart into the exercises. I trained every day from nine o’clock until four. I worked my upper body one day and my lower body the next. After a few weeks I not only felt more strength coming into my body, but I found that I was getting a great deal larger. I weighed about 250 pounds when I began my home training and immediately my bodyweight shot up to about 265 pounds. I felt a few inadequacies in my training program, for at this time I was only doing the basic lifts that I had learned from Bob Snead in college. So I started thinking up new ways to lift, new ways to develop my strength by lifting at different angles. I did this by rigging up a series of pulleys, thus enabling me to do exercises that I could not do with a free barbell or dumbell movement. This began to pay off because I found that in the powerlifts I quickly became able to handle far more weight.

To learn something about the weightlifting world, and to keep up with what was going on, I started to buy the standard muscle magazines found on the newsstand. Since most of these dealt mainly with bodybuilding, I could find out very little about strength records. One thing that I did find out was that in the deep knee bend I was approaching the world record. Much to my surprise it was about 600 pounds at that time, and I had done almost that much in training. At that time the squat was not a lift that was performed in competition, as it is today, even though throughout the years records had been kept.

One day during a heavy training session a fellow came up to my garage and introduced himself. His name was Bob Taylor and he lived in the adjoining Tennessee town of Johnson City. Bob was a dyed-down-in-the-wool weightlifting enthusiast. He was extremely interested in all phases of the strength world and had done a great deal of lifting himself. He watched while I trained and seemed especially interested in my lifting in the squat. He could not really believe that the weights I had on my makeshift barbell were quite as heavy as I told him. After testing some of them to authenticate the poundages he was quite impressed, since some of them were heavier than I gave them credit for being. He told me about another gentleman, Bob Peoples, also from Johnson City, who held the world record in the deadlift with 725 pounds. Bob Taylor told me that he was sure that Mr. Peoples would like to meet me, and naturally I was enthusiastic about meeting him. I was generally enthusiastic about making contact with people who were interested in weightlifting and with whom I could exchange ideas.

A few days later Bob Taylor called to ask if I would be interested in going to Bob Peoples’ home on the coming Saturday to do some lifting. I told him that I would be delighted, and on the Saturday morning he came to pick me up. We drove about 10 miles to Mr. Peoples’ farm. I soon met the owner of both the farm and the world record. He was a very powerful looking man with long arms and rounded shoulders. He looked as if he weighed about 200, extremely wiry and muscular, and seemed to be in his early or mid 40’s. Even though he was balding somewhat he gave as overall impression of vibrant, youthful strength. He was also very amiable, and quiet by nature. He took me down to his gym, which I later began referring to as “the dungeon.” It was a hand-excavated basement, holding a huge conglomeration of barbells and dumbells. He had also made some weights similar to those I had built.

After a guided tour, Mr. Peoples asked if I would care to do some of the deep knee bends that he had heard so much about. I replied that I would. When he asked what I’d like to warm up with I told him that I did very little warming up and asked to put about 600 on the bar. He seemed amazed but he politely proceeded to help Bob Taylor load up the big bar. I then put the bar across my shoulders, stepped back, went into a full deep knee bend and came back up. Being young and sort of frisky, I did a second repetition and then replaced the barbell back on the rack. Mr. Peoples was mighty surprised.

One thing that I discovered for sure was that as long as man lives upon this earth, strength will be admired. To develop strength one must practice the power lifts and probably the King of these lifts is the dead lift.

Ask a man who knows nothing about a barbell to perform a lift to measure his strength. He will not attempt to press, curl or squat with the weight; he will assemble the plates on the bar and proceed to lift the bar clear of the floor and stand erect. This type of lifting is the most natural way of performing a strength test.

In traveling from my home in California to Harrisburg, my son and I went by way of Johnson City, Tennessee and visited with Bob Peoples and his family for a few days before and after the contest. Driving form Johnson City along with John Summers and Peoples, to Harrisburg, observing the two days of lifting and returning to Johnson City, allowed us much time for discussing our sport, a sport that we love. It was then that I realized that many of Bob’s training innovations, pieces of equipment and methods of performance were still unknown to a vast number of power lifters.

Peary Rader gave clearance to write this article and here I am sitting on the Peoples’ porch early in the morning drinking in the beauty of forested, rolling East Tennessee country. As I pen these words that I am sure will be helpful, and watch a fox scamper across the pasture, I’m reminded of what an ideal setting this is to train in; a place of stability and opportunity where rugged mountain folk still like to earn their living by the sweat of their brow and to be fee to think for themselves and worship God in their own way. I attended services at the Sinking Creek Baptist Church last night. It is the oldest in Tennessee; a part of the original building which was built in 1783 is still standing and is a part of the old historic shrine.

It was among these settings that Bob Peoples was born and grew up as a boy across the road from where his grandfather was raised. Bob’s father, as a young man, was interested in strength. It was with his father’s 50 pound dumbbell that Bob started training at the age of 9.

A Farmer Burns course of training was purchased when Bob was 15 and he followed this very diligently for three years, at which time Physical Culture Magazine published an article on barbell training. This article was written by David Willoughby and was very well illustrated. The story helped to steer young Peoples forward on his quest for great body power.

Another media which helped Bob greatly was “Strength Magazine.” It was read avidly until the publication ceased in the early thirties. Peoples has been a regular subscriber of most all the magazines and has just about every copy of the periodicals that have been published. Through the pages of Strength, Bob learned of the Olympic lifts and the power movements also.

By the time Bob had reached the age of 18 he had become very interested in the dead lift. He did all around training, but his specialty from this time on was his pet, the deadlift. He made a lift of 350 and in a year had worked up to 450 at a bodyweight of 165. His first competition of any kind was the 1937 Tennessee State Weightlifting Championships.

The nest two years of training brought much improvement. Again he traveled to Chattanooga and lifted in the 1939 State Championships. His total had improved 65 pounds but the highlight of this occasion was a deadlift of 600 pounds.

After this performance of deadlifting, Bob returned home and did some of the most serious training of his life, only to have his gains swept away by a serious illness that resulted in a major operation. Bob was sent to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia Induction Center and it was there, after several days of medical examinations that it was discovered that a kidney tube was obstructed. Fortunately this condition was discovered before too much damage had occurred.

As Bob was told by the Army Medics to see his private physician, he did so on his arrival home. After a consultation it was decided that Bob should make a trip up to the famed Oschner’s Clinic in New Orleans. bob made the trip and this serious kidney operation was performed there. The incision was about 18 inches long, reaching from the center of the back to just below the front center of the lower rib.

Bob returned home to convalesce; the worst part of the recuperative process was the ever-present thought that there would be no more heavy lifting. After all, that was the verdict laid down by Dr. Oschner. About six weeks after surgery Bob did a little light work on the weights. This convinced him that he should do more training.

We hear so much about isotonic and isometric training and many have trained by these non-movement and short movement types of exercises. This method of training, as we have read, has played an important part in developing some of our modern day lifters.

Bob built a rack somewhat similar to our present day isometric racks. The uprights were made of 4”x4” hardwood and attached to the floor and overhead beams. These uprights had 1 1/8” by 3” holes drilled in them. Bolts 1”x 8” could be inserted in these holes. At first Bob used this device to work on the press and lockout on his jerks, but his foremost love being the deadlift, he turned his direction of work in this area. Three methods of training were performed on the uprights.

1.) The bar was loaded with an excess of his best deadlift poundage and partial movements were executed at various positions. Most work was done at positions of just below knees, knee height and just above the knees.

2.) Take weight from the uprights and lower to the floor and stand erect.

3.) A complete static (isometric) exercise in various positions.

Bob felt that he needed more basic starting strength and devised a ring with short extensions by which to hold and to add weight. By standing on various height objects he was able to develop tremendous sub-starting power. By this time Bob was using such heavy weights that it became more and more difficult for him to hold the bar while doing repetitions in his various exercises. He engineered hooks to facilitate gripping of the bar. These were the forerunner of the straps that are commonly used today.

Peoples had completely overcome his post-operative and convalescing period by breaking his personal deadlift record. At the 1946 Tennessee State Weightlifting Championships he surprised the world by doing 651 ¼ pounds in the deadlift. Bob returned to his East Tennessee farm and came up with other innovations that helped gain even loftier heights in the deadlift.

The continuous heavy training would sometimes leave his joints stiff and sore. Bob invented another gimmick, a sponge rubber was soaked with a good liniment and placed on the knees, back, or other sore area and secured in place by wrapping with a bandage. This not only was soothing, but allowed harder workouts with no discomfort, which facilitated further gains.

Our deadlift champion began to study his body leverages and gravity centers. He would take a bar in a starting deadlift position and view himself an a mirror and notice by the raising or lowering of the bar as he changed grips, using different height shoes, inhaling slightly, inhaling heavily, exhaling slightly, exhaling heavily and observing the positions and conditions that suited him best.

He decided that the best position for him was rounded back, palms forward, hook grip and to lift barefooted and with a completely exhaled thoracic cavity. With this new knowledge and much training under his belt, Peoples journeyed to Chattanooga to take part in the 1947 “Mr. South” contest and variety show. This event was staged annually by the Central YMCA during the month of October. Top stars were invited to perform in their special events.

As the crowd cheered and Bob heaved and tugged, the stupendous weight of 699 pounds cleared the floor and inched its way upward until it became fixed by Bob at the completion position. Another record to his credit, but this wasn’t all; the newspaper photographer failed to get a picture, Bob went back stage and obliged the press photographer by lift the same weight a second time. It seemed that Bob had discovered magic formulas – each time he performed the record would go up. As he trained somewhat along the lines of previous training and making a few changes here and there he became progressively stronger.

Though Bob had always done some squats, he now embarked on a concentrated course of deep knee bends. His back being very strong, he noticed that coming up out of squats he would do a type of exercise which was between a knee bend and a good morning movement. A shoulder apparatus was built to support weight and facilitate the exercise. This and quarter squats plus taking heavy weights from the racks and doing rapid deadlifts by bouncing the weight off the floor increased his strength a great deal more. An invitation to appear on the Nashville YMCA Variety Show program was accepted. The show was held in December of 1947.

“Pudgy” Stockton was billed as the headline but after Bob deadlifted 710 pounds she was pushed back into the background. March of 1948 found Bob lifting 704 pounds in Detroit. This was the first time that he had performed in public without making an increase in poundages lifted. he did clear the floor with 719 pounds and just failed to stand erect with this weight which would have been a record.

The grand climax of lifting came to John Robert Peoples Jr. during the great Red Shield Boy’s Club Variety Show of 1949. What an opportunity – that of being able to perform before an enthusiastic hometown crowd. A hush fell over the Johnson City Auditorium as Bob approached the bar with a yell from an old Tennessee Mountaineer, “That’s our man – come on Bob, I know ye can lift that dang weight!” It seemed like an eternity before the barbell left the floor. Up, up it went and with a final heave mighty Bob Peoples stood erect to one of the most thunderous applauses that I ever heard.

The lifter weighed 181 pounds and the weight scaled 725 ¾ pounds.

by

Bob Hise (1964)

Undoubtedly a number of you have found yourselves wondering why some fellows seem to make faster improvement than others. An obvious answer, and one which applies in many cases, is simply that nature has provided certain individuals with bodies which are more receptive to the stimulation of exercise than others. Most bodybuilders and lifters share this opinion. But there is more to it than this. The average lifter instinctively seems to sense this, but when asked about it is never quite able to put his finger on it. He knows an explanation does exist, but hasn’t the vaguest idea what that explanation is, and hence the answer must be that it is a “secret.”

In trying to figure out why some gain quickly and others not at all or only slightly, we must not lose sight of all the factors involved. For instance, how does the individual train? What method of training does he follow? And most important of all, what is his mental outlook in relation to exercise? The latter statement is especially important because it acts as a direct force in helping him to reach his goal if he steers it properly.

I realize that this statement may not impress you at this time, and you may, with some skepticism, ask yourself what’s so important about one’s mental approach? The answer is – EVERYTHING! Does this answer surprise you? Does it raise doubts in your mind? If so, don’t fret, because many who haven’t given this matter any thought find it hard to accept. It’s true, nevertheless, when one has the proper psychological approach it bolsters his desires and intensifies his drive, gives him that extra energy he may need to reach his goal. Moreover, the right attitude is equally as important as selecting the right training system.

Let’s delve into the subject more fully. Let us take two fellows with equal physical qualities and who are following identical training systems. One of them, however, feels that he will not accomplish ANYTHING by employing this method so goes about it listlessly. The other one greatly favors and believes in it and tackles his training more zestfully. It’s easy to guess, from this description, which of the two will make outstanding gains. It’s safe to say, too, that the one who likes his training will, in all probability, make three to five times the improvement of the other fellow, simply because he believes in his efforts. Of course, it’s natural for one to conclude, under the circumstances, that this lack of improvement is solely due to his failure to put “his all” in his training. And this is correct up to a point. The fact remains, however, that because his mental approach is so impotent and lackadaisical he can’t push himself to an all-out effort. It acts like a psychological block that prevents him from enjoying such training, dampens his spirit and restricts his physical output. Such individuals subconsciously accept a defeatist attitude and become mentally depressed, thus voiding the possible benefits that may accrue from their efforts.

You must learn to recognize that a vast difference exists between those who know that their training will benefit them, and those who feel it is utterly useless. It is also true that those who enjoy their training will invariably benefit from it because they seem to train harder. So it’s plain to see how much one’s mental approach works.

But the question of interest to you is, no doubt, how does this affect you? I’ll try to explain by saying that when your mental attitude is optimistic about training it helps to bring you within easier reach of your goal than when your outlook is pessimistic. For this reason you should aim towards the pinnacle of success and not at the halfway mark. And with your mental facilities all geared up you shouldn’t have any trouble attaining your ultimate aim and I intend no pun with the phrase ‘all geared up’ here.

Along this line let me mention a very striking example of the strong psychological approach – that grand oldtimer, Maxick. If anyone had the power of mental control in relation to strength, he did. It’s been said many times that he would go into deep concentration after each training session when he wanted to accomplish a specific lift or some unusual feat of strength. Never once did he recognize defeat, or that he would fail in his objective. His thoughts always dwelled on the positive outcome of his training labors, and that he would perform the feat he desired when the time came . . . and he always did.

Another outstanding example of this type was Tony Terlazzo, former world and Olympic champion. He also maintained a positive mental approach. Weeks before a contest he would affix certain poundages in his mind which he hoped to succeed with, and then he trained towards that goal. There were times when he overshot himself, again no pun intended, that’s true, but he realized that in order to lift progressively heavier weights he must etch these poundages upon is mind so they would not frighten him when the time came to lift them. Eventually he got so far ahead of everyone in his class that he would often try to lift a higher total than those in a heavier division, and often succeeded. The whole idea proved to be a terrific incentive that forced him far ahead of his competitors and made him the champion that he was. Of course even he could not have forged so far ahead had it not been for his positive mental approach to training and competing. But he was one of the very few to recognize this principle and used it to advantage.

Tommy Kono, the present world and Olympic champion, also uses this positive approach in his lifting. “Think big and you’ll lift big” is his motto. And he’s proved this point by making world records and making and winning many world lifting titles. Had he embraced a defeatist attitude instead of a positive one I doubt if the lifting world would have heard of him at all. Now do you believe that your mental approach is important?

In a small way the foregoing should help to explain why records in all sports are higher today than they were 15 to 20 years ago. For one thing, athletes have to prepare themselves mentally to shoot for these higher marks, consequently they approach them with greater confidence than if they didn’t adopt such lofty aims.

The Mental Approach by John Grimek (1961)

This is an altered article showing a Stuart McRobert interpretation of the classic routine for adding size in a hurry, a simple enough version of the 20 rep squat routine:

1.) Situp
2.) Squat, followed immediately by
3.) Light Breathing Pullover
4.) Calf Raise
5.) Bench Press
6.) Stiff Legged Deadlift (once a week only) followed immediately by
7.) Light Breathing Pullover
8.) Pulldown, Bent Row or Chin
9.) Barbell Curl
10.) Close Grip Bench Press

The squat has been placed second in the routine because in the later going it’s so tough that it needs all your energy and motivational reserves. Some people prefer to leave it till the end of the routine, but we recommend you do the squat early and take a good 15 to 20 minute breather following the accompanying pullovers. Take as long as you like, as long it takes to do justice to the rest of the routine.

Squat in good form, use heavy weights with lots of breathing, and add weight every workout. Eat lots of high-protein foods, rest and relax as much as you can and maintain a positive outlook.

You’ll be doing ONE TOP SET for each exercise. Precede this with a warmup set or two.

The cycle lasts nine weeks. For the first three workouts you’ll be training within your limits. Don’t just jump into the hard stuff immediately, get some momentum going. Start out using easily managed poundages and add to them so that by the 4th workout you’re pushing hard to get the required reps. The next seven weeks will test you and your desire to attain.

Keep the reps at 20 for the squat, pullover and calf raise. 12 for the deadlift and 6 to 10 for everything else. The idea is to time things so that you are starting the full bore effort in the 4th workout. At this point, don’t stop a set because you’ve reached the repetition goal. One set each, no holding back, increase your poundages each workout.

Of course, you’ll also be increasing your consumption of food and drink during this period, if you want to make gains. There are just 10 exercises in the program. Crunches are not done to the limit and pullovers are done with a light bar for the stretch, breathing and ribcage expanding benefits. You have only 8 hard sets each workout. Add nothing. Maintain the workout by workout squat increases at all costs, even if that means dropping other exercises near the end of the cycle.

The routine is to be done twice a week. Take an extra day off if you really need it.

Rest.
Lots.
Eat.
Lots.

Simple.

After the 4th workout you’ll have to psych yourself to add 10 pounds every week to the deadlift and 5 to the squat. You can do it if you want it.
Easy on paper, hard under the bar.

Give it all you’ve got and be amazed.

The squat has been labeled a monster by the Journal of American Medical Association (Aug. 1961) and by Prof. Karl Klein of the University of Texas in Sports Illustrated (March 12, 1962). Coaches across the country, who once used squats as a conditioner, now shun it with alarm. I offer myself as proof that the squat is a valuable exercise, and is not harmful if properly done. You never send a baseball pitcher out in the spring to throw full game the first day. He works hard doing pushups, lifting dumbells, running, chinning and throwing for hours at half speed before he is ready to toss a high, hard one. The same applies to the squat.

During the summer months I spend most of my evenings crouched behind the plate as a baseball umpire. My position ranges from full squat to half squat. In an average nine-inning game, I’ll crouch no less than 300 times, and often will make quick movements from that position. Working a two-man system means the plate umpire is continually running. A man’s legs must be both strong and flexible to withstand 100 to 150 games a summer, most of them behind the plate.

I received a badly damaged knee in high school some 14 years ago. Though the knee hurt considerably no one checked it. Today, when I grow lazy and do not work with the weights the knee still troubles me. Only by squatting and running am I able to hold up an entire summer on the ball field.

Since squatting is both fun and helpful, I’ve made it my pet lift. My immediate goal is a 600-lb. squat by this coming August. Last August my personal best was 410. Here’s one man’s method of progressive training to keep the legs and knees in condition and make a name for yourself to boot.

To get the muscles loose and the blood flowing, walk or run three miles. The run need only be a slow run and the walk should be a heel-and-toe walk. I prefer the latter. When I don’t run or walk, I try to box 3 to 6 rounds before working out. In case I do none of the three, I start the workout with a set of abdominal raises on an inclined board without touching back or shoulders to the board. Usually 30 reps are sufficient.

Then I take 275 and do half-squats (parallel), then full squats, little rest between warmup sets. Next I take 315 and do 10 reps in the normal squat. This is with feet as wide apart as the shoulders and toes pointed straight ahead or slightly pigeon-toed. Heels are flat on the floor and often squats are done barefooted. I never use a heel board.

After these 10 reps I take 365 and do five reps in the half-squat from the bottom. This means coming only halfway up, then returning to the full squat position. Using the same weight I often try (often without success) to do five reps in the breathless squat. When the full squat position is reached, it is held and all the breath is exhaled. Then return to normal standing position. (A paused full squat with bottom exhalation and return to top on empty lungs.)

Move the weight then to 415 and do three reps in the double squat. Go down full, but return only halfway to standing. Then go full again and stand all the way. Do this three times. Jump to 450 and see how many times you can execute a double squat. Jump to 470 and do as many reps in the normal squat as possible. I try a maximum squat once every two weeks.

Now comes the top end. Go 50 pounds more than your maximum and do two sets of half-squats or lower with that weight. Move to 600 and do the same, then to 650 and do the same, maybe making only quarter-squats here. Jump to 750, 800, 850, 900, doing quarter-squats, as many as possible.

Go next to the hack lift. Warm up with 455, doing five reps. Jump to 500 and try to get 10 reps. Go next to 550 and try to make 4 reps. Single rep at 600, if possible.

This should be, and is, a long, hard workout. But it has allowed me to jump from 410 to 505 in five months of working out on an irregular schedule. Start with weights you can handle accordingly. Be your own boss. Let your ability determine what weight you should use and don’t get in too big a hurry. Big mistake. You must be progressive in your training, just like a baseball pitcher. Work three times a week for best results.

I’ve set the following goals for myself by August:
600 squat / 700 hack / 500 Zercher / 425 one-handed deadlift.
It will be interesting to see if this routine will make it. Also, to see if my knees collapse.

by Bill Clark (1962)

Let’s say you want to stop growing. Maybe you don’t want to buy bigger clothes or you’ve become leery of the increased attention your constantly improving physique is receiving. Our fail-safe plan for stagnation focuses on the 10 most common training mistakes. Follow these poor choices and we can virtually guarantee you won’t get any bigger; you may even get smaller.

1 TOO MUCH WEIGHT

Occasionally, you can have too much of a good thing. “Go heavy” is an excellent training mantra, but as size-gaining advice, it leaves out the necessary instructions. Here’s the unabridged version: use the heaviest weight you can with good form for six to 10 reps and emphasize basic compound exercises. Unless you’re as broad as Dennis Wolf, that printed advice is not going to fit very well on your T-shirt, which brings us back to “Go heavy.” Too many bodybuilders focus on hoisting maximum weights by doing fewer reps and/or using sloppy form. If, set after set, exercise after exercise, you’re doing fewer than six reps, it’s unlikely you’ll gain much but sore tendons and joints. Likewise, if you’re always using weights that force you to cheat throughout the set, it’s a certainty that you’re not truly stressing the target bodypart. If you don’t want to get bigger, always use a weight that’s so heavy you can’t get six good reps on your own.

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2 SLOPPY FORM

Sometimes an excessively heavy weight is the culprit, but very often, too much “body English” is used to move even an appropriate weight. The truth is, even some bodybuilders with years of experience don’t know the most effective method for executing a lift to target the desired area; they’ve always done a lift wrong and never think to change. Others progressively develop bad exercise habits. If you don’t want to get bigger, cheat the weight up, use momentum and enlist stabilizers, such as your lower back, as much as possible. Not only will this dramatically decrease growth, but it’s a terrific way to injure yourself.

3 LACK OF INTENSITY

To prevent rapid growth, never push a set to full-rep failure or beyond. Never continue grinding out reps when your muscles are in agony. Do not consistently go beyond what you’ve done before. Quit your sets the moment you feel a twinge of pain; fear going to failure, and avoid techniques such as supersets, forced reps and descending sets. Without intensity, it’s a good bet you won’t gain much except frustration.

4 EMPHASIZING STRONG POINTS

If you want to have the most unbalanced physique possible, spend most of your gym time emphasizing your strongest bodyparts and little or no time on your weakest. The same holds true for exercises. If you’re especially strong in the bench press and weak in the leg press, the surest way to increase this imbalance is to focus more on your bench and the ancillary lifts that can boost your bench, and stop doing leg presses altogether. Your strong points will continue to get stronger, your weak points will never change, and your physique will morph into something increasingly less aesthetic and more abstract.

5 TOO MUCH VOLUME

To halt and even reverse growth in a hurry, we recommend you keep training and training and training. Consistently do 40 intense sets for your quads twice per week and watch your legs shrink. Shopping for jeans will become a snap, as you’ll be able to stop donning the most relaxed-fit baggies and start slipping into some so narrow Dave Chappelle could wear them. Overtrain with too much volume and you can almost guarantee you won’t grow. Do it to an extreme over an extended period and you’ll actually lose muscle.

6 SKIPPING WARM-UPS AND STRETCHING

Many bodybuilders think of warm-ups and stretches in the same way they do advertisements at the beginning of a DVD. They want to skip them or speed through them as fast as possible and proceed with the main event. This is advised only if you’re eager to strain or tear a muscle or tendon. If you want to injure yourself, and thus reverse your progress, and thus reverse your progress, train all-out without first warming up and stretching.

7 OVERRELIANCE ON MACHINES

Machines are your friends, but just as talking on your cell phone, watching TV and listening to music all while driving your car is a recipe for disaster, relying exclusively on exercise machines is a good way to slow or bring your gains to a screeching halt. In most cases, free weights provide a freer range of motion than machines. They are also the most effective way to perform heavy basics, such as bench presses, deadlifts and squats. Of course, machines are also necessary bodybuilding tools, but always choosing the mechanical version of lifts over the barbell or dumbbell versions will almost certainly limit your gains.

8 INSUFFICIENT RECUPERATION

The more you train, the more you’ll grow is one of the most enduring fallacies of bodybuilding. It’s rarely stated so boldly. Most bodybuilders recognize that they break down muscle in the gym and grow only via sufficient nutrition and recuperation. Still, it’s difficult to do less to make ourselves grow more. The inclination is almost always to do more: more workouts, longer workouts, more cardio, more, more, more. If you’re doing a typical routine for a typical training split, odds are, doing more will make you grow less.

9 NEGLECTING SMALLER MUSCLES

So much of the emphasis on gaining size focuses on lifting big in the biggest lifts (deadlifts, bent rows, leg presses, etc.) that many bodybuilders tend to undertrain, or even skip, hamstrings, calves, abdominals and forearms. It seems logical that to gain the most muscle, you should train most muscles, but logic escapes those who think the “big lifts” are all that matter. If you’re not interested in having a complete and maximally developed physique, segregate some bodyparts as “incidentals” and don’t bother working them at all.

10 NO GOALS

The surest way to get nowhere is to have no planned destination. For some, bodybuilding is the equivalent of starting up their cars knowing where they want to go. Set no short-term aspirations (such as a new strength best for your next workout) or long-term targets (such as gaining 10 lean pounds over the next 10 months) and, when your progress stagnates, you won’t feel any anxiety about missing your personal marks. Without goals, you can blissfully run in place, never challenging yourself to race ever further.

THE RIGHT WAY

Now that we’ve demonstrated the surest training methods for not growing, you simply need to avoid each of these 10 misguided premises to progress. What many of these mistakes have in common is they make things easier. We can’t promise that gaining muscle will be a breeze. However, if you train correctly, gains will come steadily. Do the opposite of what the size-adverse do, turn these negatives into positives, and be wary of shortcuts. You may eventually have to buy bigger clothes and you may be pestered with doltish questions such as “How much can you bench?” or “How big are your arms?” but those are small prices to pay for growth.

Author: by Greg Merritt
COPYRIGHT 2006 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
Flex Magazine
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www.flexonline.com

Despite the passage of more than a couple of dozen years now, the fitness boom that struck in the late ’70s generated several myths that have withstood the test of time and can still be heard floating around gyms, tracks and saunas from New York to Los Angeles, from Vancouver to Mexico City. And while you may consider yourself a savvy workout vet, you’ve likely fallen prey to one or more of these falsehoods at some point in time. Well, we gym blokes at MEN’S FITNESS are here to see that you don’t waste another minute pursuing strategies rooted in sophistry. Get ready to free your mind and unleash your full-body potential.

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Myth: No Pain No Gain

This is easily the most popular catch phrase to mislead a nation since the 1950s’ Camel cigarettes ad, which declared, “More doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette.”

The truth: Regardless of the way Rocky Balboa’s training scenes were portrayed, exercise does not have to hurt (you or any hanging sides of beef) to be effective.

How to reach your goals:

• When you first start an exercise program, it’s normal to feel some discomfort for several days after your workouts. Starting at an easy level and slowly progressing to a higher intensity can avert much of this pain.
• Training too hard can be counterproductive, as it may lead to overtraining. Nicholas DeNubile, M.D., clinical assistant professor in the department of orthopedic surgery at the University of Pennsylvania and orthopedic consultant to the Philadelphia 76ers, says, “When you overtrain, your body actually breaks down.”
• To minimize soreness, warm up before your workouts and cool down and stretch afterward.
• Stay in tune to the signs your body is sending. DeNubile says, “You must learn the difference between slight muscle soreness from a good workout and the soreness that may be a warning sign of an injury.”

Occasional muscle pain, especially if it’s bilateral (on both sides of the body), is normal, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate that you had a good workout.

Myth: Sweating Is A Great Way To Lose Weight

Remember those rubber workout suits some guys used to sport as they jogged or hit the weights? Just pour yourself in and wait for the fat to melt off, right? The persistence of this view is so great that you can still find variations on no-pain, no-gain infomercials targeting Hispanic cable-television viewers.

The truth: Exaggerated sweat loss does result in weight loss, but at best it’s short-lived. Sweating off the pounds can be an unhealthy, even dangerous and potentially fatal way to lighten your load. Body suits, body wraps or any methods that promote profuse sweating (e.g., extreme saunas) do not lead to increased fat loss. In fact:

• More sweating does not amount to more calories burned.
• Sweating is the way your body cools itself off.
• Excessive sweat loss leads to dehydration. Dehydration has a negative effect on strength, endurance, even heart and brain function.
• Tim Scheett, Ph.D., assistant professor in the School of Human Performance at the University of Southern Mississippi, warns that “exercising when dehydrated can lead to heat exhaustion, heat stroke, brain damage and even death.”
• Any weight loss that results from sweating will be returned as soon as fluids are consumed.

How to reach your goals: Weight loss can only be accomplished by burning more calories than you take in–sweating techniques have no role to play.

Myth: Performing Crunches Is The Only Way To Get A Flat Stomach

Yeah! It’s time for some spot reducing! I’m gonna order me the latest, greatest ab machine featured on my favorite after-hours infomercial.

The truth: There is no latest, greatest ab machine. Understood? And there is no such thing as “spot reducing.” Fat loss is a systemic process. When you lose body fat, it comes off proportionately from your entire body–face, buttocks, waist, triceps, everywhere.

How to reach your goals:

• To create a washboard stomach, your program has to consist of a low-fat diet, weight training, cardiovascular exercise and a variety of abdominal exercises (see “Summer Six-Pack” page 92, and “Lose the Gut, Get Cut,” page 68).
• Crunches and other properly executed abdominal movements are indeed important components of a program that intends to deliver a tight, flat midsection. Abdominal exercises tone the area, or add muscle to it if you apply resistance; however, they won’t cause abdominal fat loss. And if some infomercial claims that its equipment will, click over to Nick at Nite.
• The only exercises that experts say can directly reduce your waist size involve the transverse abdominis (see “Suck In That Gut,” April). This deep abdominal muscle helps to hold your organs in and provide stability to your spine.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help. While you get dependable exercise advice and diet tips in MEN’S FITNESS, it can be helpful to seek one-on-one guidance from a certified personal trainer and/or sports nutritionist.

Myth: Lifting Heavy Weights Will Make You Muscle-Bound

The truth: We should all be so lucky. Weightlifting does not make you too big. If it were that easy, creatine would not be as common to every locker-room stall as talcum powder. Fact is, lifting heavy weights on occasion is important for any guy interested in reaping the benefits of weight training.

For most of us, our genetics will prevent us from ever reaching the point where we have too much muscle. “Like a governor on a motor to prevent it from going too fast, our muscles produce a protein that prevents our muscles from growing too large,” says Scheett. Individuals with large amounts of muscle mass got that way through many years of intense, dedicated lifting–up to five hours almost every day–and disciplined dietary practices. Be satisfied with any muscle you add, as muscle tissue promotes health, speeds metabolism and enhances sex appeal.

How to reach your goals:

• Be sure to stretch before and after lifting weights as well as on off days to keep your body limber and the muscle sheaths–the fascia–supple.
• Cycle the amount of reps and weight you use every workout. Try eight to 10 reps one workout, 12 to 15 the following, and three to five the next, then cycle back through.
• Follow the principles of progressive overload. Slowly increase the amount of weight you use once you can do more than the prescribed number of reps for all sets of a given exercise.
• Allow at least 48 hours of rest between workouts for similar muscle groups.

Myth: If You Stop Lifting Weights Your Muscle Will Turn To Fat

Some guys actually use this as an excuse to not start a weightlifting program. Although it may be possible if you’re David Blain, the rest of us will never be capable of turning fat to muscle, or vice versa. Abracadabra … abracadabra … damn! (We do recall a come-on blurb on the cover of a so-called men’s health and fitness magazine touting “Turn Fat Into Muscle.”)

The truth:

• Muscle and fat are two unique types of tissue that are made up of different kinds of cells. One cannot be transformed into the other.
• When you stop weightlifting for a prolonged period, the muscle tissue simply shrinks. That’s called atrophy (the opposite of hypertrophy). When muscle cells are shrinking while fat cells are simultaneously growing as a result of a poorly conceived nutrition plan, it creates the illusion of muscle turning into fat.
• Scheett enlightens: “Without regular exercise, daily calorie expenditure is dramatically reduced. This is compounded by a decreased resting metabolic rate due to the loss of metabolically active muscle tissue. If a person continues eating the same amount he did when he was training, then he will rapidly gain body fat.”

How to reach your goals:

• To keep your muscle mass, weight-train for 30 to 60 minutes three to five times per week.
• Always include basic, multijoint movements such as squats, bench presses and rows.
• Consume at least one gram of protein per pound of body weight.

Author: by Jim Stoppani
COPYRIGHT 2003 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
Men’s Fitness
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The same principles apply to both fat loss and muscle gain. The overriding concern is that either goal is very specific and outside the norm for most people in the United States. A typical approach leads to fat gain and poor sports performance. In my humble opinion, I offer these ideas for “muscle gain:”

My first idea is to “embrace puberty.” The greatest growth spurt of my life was my first four months with Dick Notmeyer and the Pacifica Barbell Club program. What I often fail to mention is that I also went through that “secondary growth spurt” that most men go through in their teen years. I was eighteen, but for Irish guys, late puberty is not uncommon.

So, how do you embrace puberty? One thing all parents of teens complain about is that “my kid sleeps all day.” First, sleep more. Second, sleep more, third, sleep more. The Cuban Olympic lifters reportedly sleep nine and a half hours at night, plus a two and a half hour nap each afternoon. My math skill may suck, but sleeping twelve hours a day comes out to half the day asleep!

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You will ignore this point, everyone does. The first thing to do to increase muscle mass is to sleep more. Cover your windows in your bedroom with an additional blanket, toss a towel over your LCD on the alarm clock, and stuff towels under the door to block out light and sound. Quit talking to sexy_vixen in the chatroom, stop watching reruns of “Friends,” and go to bed early. Now, when I went through my growth spurt, I had a helluva time falling asleep, but couldn’t get up in the morning. I later “taught” myself to fall asleep with Bud Winter’s book, “Relax and Win.” There are dozens of tapes and books available now to help one fall asleep faster. I combined several of my favorites and made a “sleep tape.” Now, I can fall asleep quickly and anywhere.

Weekends are another thing: if you party every weekend evening, no only do you risk other problems, but you are cutting into a great opportunity to sleep. I am not trying to be a martyr, but I gave up “partying” in Junior College so I could get my goal of an athletic scholarship. It worked, a short-term sacrifice led to long-term success.

I have always used acne breakouts with my athletes as a sign that “something” was going on. Very often, acne shows up when they were overtraining. I would discover that they were on a CYO basketball team that played and practiced four nights a week plus doing the throwing sessions and the lifting work. Or, they were cheating on their nutritional stuff. But, keep a “zit chart” in your diary. It is often a great way to plot problems and find answers.

Along with this, you need to eliminate soft drinks and simple sugars. Arthur deVany has a lot of information on this in his new book, but the simple answer is that these addictive substances also play havoc with your Insulin system and can smash natural hormone production. Don’t believe me? Go to Las Vegas and look at “your fellow Americans.” Go to Disneyland and watch “the balloon people.” The single best diet decision I ever made was giving up soda for Lent in the eighth grade. I never went back and I have reaped the benefits of a long athletic career (there are other reasons, too).

Weight gain advice, step one: Sleep more and dump sugar.

Obviously, you are going to lift weights. The essential truth of the whole thing comes in a few layers. One, the really important muscles in sports are the ones you see “when you are walking away.” The traps, the spinal erectors, the glutes, the hams and the calves usually don’t get a lot of media attention. But, this chain of muscles are the ones that make the discus fly and the running backs fall hard. I looked at a picture of myself in Junior College that my daughter has in this collage and I don’t look impressive. People thought I weighed 170-180, but I snatched 260, clean and jerked 319 and was an All-American JC disc thrower. But, I didn’t look all that big at 208.

That is the next hard truth, go to McDonalds and buy forty quarter pounders and stick the meat patties all over your body. That represents ten pounds of muscle gain. It might get you arrested, but these ten pounds are going to really improve your athletic ability. But, it might not “look” that different.

If you focus on the pecs and biceps, you will see it in the mirror, but not on the field of play. I would recommend that you first master an excellent back squat technique. Chest up, lower back locked in, and “ass to the grass.” I like the sequence of a young Dimas, although they seemed to have removed it off of his website. (I could email it to you.) He sits deep and comes up.

Next, you should master the power clean. I follow Bob Bednarski’s advice on weight gain: squat three times a week and power clean twice. It works. Now, if you are working with me, I would teach you to snatch, too, but a deep squat and power clean is going to do wonders for you. But, I am serious about “mastery” here: read all you can, look at pictures, ask questions, and take these lifts seriously. A good idea is to go back to last year’s football programs and find the weight of the heaviest guy you will play. Make it a goal of power cleaning that “gentleman” for reps. I play in a five on five league and I can snatch anybody we play. I win a lot of close plays.

Supplements are for health only! Go cheap. My mom got me on Vitamin E and I continue to take this today. I also like Magnesium and Potassium. These three will cost pennies a day. Again, most of your real “bang” comes from food, but I have yet to work with a high school kid that doesn’t want to hear supps before supper.

Food? I am a high protein nut, but you are going to have to have protein at every meal. The Zone guys recommend splitting your plate into three parts: protein, veggies, and grains. (I don’t eat grains.) Not a bad idea, really. Every meal, eat a third of a plate of protein. It is simple and mom won’t freak at the grocery bills as much. (In my case, mom used to really get angry because I used to have a meal before we would have a meal.)

You will regret fat gain either during the season or as an adult. Focusing on muscle gain is probably a better way to go. Have some kind of measuring stick: I always liked the standing long jump. There just aren’t many tricks with this thing and you can gauge your training successes. Take some practice attempts weekly, but only do it serious every three weeks or so.

Finally, if you don’t have a journal or diary, you are spinning your wheels. Record your mood, your weight, your day, and your training. Add little insights, too, like I said before, the zit chart has some value, if applicable. In addition, I kept a little “Red Book” where I kept ideas, programs and quotes that caught my eye. One of my favorite lines: “The Russians recommend squats and power cleans for success.” Just a gem I came across and I still add little lines now and again.

I had been working on a little article, but the following is a rough draft of it. It is a summary of my thoughts on the real secret:

It is a hard concept to understand. It comes under many titles, but I like “hard work.” As simple as it may sound, the ability to “train hard” is almost unfathomable to most young trainees.

As a high school football coach, I dealt with a lot of injuries. Football is a series of collisions and people get hurt. The ability to play “hurt” is one of qualities that separates the good players from the poor players. Trust me: it is not a question of speed or size. In fact, we have a little mantra: “Looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane.” Sexist, yes, but every coach has stories about the number of athletes who look great in the uniform yet you would be liable for manslaughter if you let them in a game.

Injuries happen to the good players, too. In fact, I often found that a good player returns from an injury (a non-season ending injury) as a better football player than when he got hurt. Why? I usually asked the injured athlete just to do one thing: watch practice.

As a teacher, I also asked them to write a one-page overview of what they watched all week. Pat, a sophomore quarterback, couldn’t stop at one page. In fact, he couldn’t stop talking about what he had seen during his short layoff.

“It is all so clear,” Pat said. “I see why you are always yelling ‘push it’ and ‘let’s get going.” What had become obvious to Pat is that the team was outside, they moved around and there was a football. But, we weren’t practicing hard. In a week off with a shoulder injury, he understood what I had preached all season. Yes, we were sweating and breathing hard, but not really getting over the threshold into hard work. Not surprisingly, we didn’t lose any more sophomore games that year. When the quarterback understands hard work, the team follows. But, without the injury, I couldn’t really explain it to him.

During my college years, Arnold’s book, “The Education of a Bodybuilder,” hit the bookstores. For a few years, every college weightroom in America had dozens of frat boys lining up to get their supersets and five sets of leg extensions finished before moving to calf raises. What I also witnessed was a complete misunderstanding of Arnold’s methods: yes, there was the screaming and the shouts of “one more rep,” but most trainees weren’t doing hard work!

What? They screamed, they shouted and, I am sure, they ended up sore. But, like my good friends Doug and Ace, they didn’t make any progress. Why? In their quest for more reps and more soreness, they missed the guiding principle of progression:

MORE WEIGHT!

Instead of adding plates each workout, they stayed with 135 on the squat, well, half-squat. Rather than pushing the iron from floor to ceiling, they grabbed a dumbbell and isolated the muscle. But, there wasn’t any muscle to isolate!

Screaming, yelling, and soreness are all too often mistaken for hard work. Try to find a bodybuilding spa that you can have a conversation. Beyond the screaming, the music is played so loud it is impossible to concentrate. But, that is not hard work.

So, what is it? You know, … I don’t know, but I know it when I see it. Go to a local Olympic lifting meet and watch a teenager pull his first bodyweight snatch. Look at the face, the technique and the effort. Go watch somebody flip an eighteen-foot caber at a Highland Games. These examples represent the effects of hard work. Watch someone try to achieve that crazy standard of fifteen reps with bodyweight in the overhead squat that was pushed by that maniac throws coach in California. This is just another way to measure hard work.

You see, that is the point: you can’t always measure hard work by the workout! It may be better to measure by the effects. In a recent issue of the Dino Files, we were all given the Bob Hoffman “Gold, Silver and Bronze” chart. The challenge is simple: pick out a number of these lifts and try to get the standard. To be honest, I was humbled by the one-arm snatches. I realized how much more I needed to do to get to that “bronze medal” level. Let’s not even talk about the Gold for a few months. Maybe years.

Hard work. It may be impossible to measure hard work in the tight confines of a single workout. So, how can we start measuring, testing if you will, our approach to really understanding? As a theologian, I can’t help myself but with starting with the “not’s.”

First, don’t measure hard work by the completion of a set workout. True, York Course Three is one of the toughest programs ever outlined with its combination of one-arm movements, Olympic lifts, and classic moves. But, simply finishing a program by going through the motions with underweight bars and dumbbells is, well, toning! A seventy-page workout with spreadsheets and percentages weigh more than most of the lifts some people use in training. It isn’t the paper, it’s the plates that matter.

Second, be careful about using the mirror and measurements to check your hard work status. Having a wasp waist and Herculean Shoulders is as much the luck of the genetic draw as anything else. And, yes, you can build a marvelous body on a steady diet of drugs and pumping. Of course, you might look like Tarzan, …

Third, don’t measure hard work by noises you make, chalk you eat, sweat pools on the floor, or smell of the gym. Step aerobics’ classes are loud and sweaty. But try to get our leotarded steppers to launch a caber. Yelling, shouting, screaming all have their place, but NFL games have the same thing.

So, how do I measure hard work. Simply, achieve difficult goals. As one of my favorite authors, Cervantes, wrote: “It’s the road, not the inn.” The journey to difficult goals is hard work. Pull out Hoffman’s Gold, Silver and Bronze list and circle ten lifts. (The Hoffman Standards …I will save you the work)Stepping up to the Bronze standard, especially in the one-hand lifts, is worthy of any strength enthusiast. Anyone able to do the entire Gold standard would certainly be in the top one percent of the strength community.

For more information on Dan John, visit his website at: www.danjohn.org

Carb confusion is completely out of control. Many well-intentioned but deluded bodybuilders actually believe that one lone bagel will undermine months of dieting.

The plain truth is that carbohydrates are not evil, but you need the inside information on how to tweak them to your advantage. I’m going to share a few key points to keep you lean as you pack on mass. Follow these eight recommendations and you’ll be on the road to success without going through carb deprivation.

Tip #1 – The 2-3 Rule

The 2-3 rule dictates that you consume 2-3 grams (g) of carbs per pound of bodyweight per day, spread over five or six meals. A 200-pound bodybuilder has to chow down on 400-600 g per day — 3 g per pound of bodyweight (600 g of carbs) is the ultimate objective.

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Tip #2 – Leaning Out: Follow The 3-2-1 Rule

After completing a mass phase and moving on to a cutting phase, adjust the ratios according to the 3-2-1 rule: 3 g of carbs per pound of bodyweight on day one, 2 g per pound of bodyweight on day two and 1 g per pound of bodyweight on day three. Repeat this cycle as long as necessary to etch in the details. This cutting phase lowers calories and glycogen stores to burn bodyfat without resorting to extreme low-carb diets, which lead to a loss of muscle mass.

Tip #3 – Mushy Carbs Are Best For Mass

Soft-textured carbs (fast-acting high-glycemic carbs) such as Cream of Rice, Cream of Wheat, mashed potatoes, white bread and fat-free baked goods are ideal for mass building. A soft texture expedites digestion, which in turn increases insulin levels. Insulin-infused carbs reverse muscle breakdown and help to drive amino acids — the building blocks of mass — into muscle tissue.

Tip #4 – Opt For Low-Glycemic Carbs To Get Leaner

Slow-digesting (low-glycemic) carbs have a minimal effect on insulin levels. Favoring these slow-to-burn carbs allows you to keep calories high to maintain mass gains while moderating insulin levels to get leaner. Low-glycemic choices include rye bread, yams, red potatoes, peas, corn, buckwheat noodles and artificially sweetened low-fat yogurt.

Tip #5 – Timing is Everything

The two most important meals are posttraining and breakfast, in that order. These are ideal times to carb load (for a 200-pound bodybuilder, that means 90-100 g of carbs at breakfast; see #6 for posttraining suggestions). It helps restock liver and muscle glycogen stores and promotes protein synthesis. This time-release plan will prevent catabolism (muscle wasting) and minimize the risk that your carbs will be converted to bodyfat.

Tip #6 – Load Fast-Acting Carbs After Training

Pack in fast-acting (sugar-laden) carbs after workouts. The goal is to spike insulin levels to ward off muscle breakdown and to stimulate an increase in metabolism. The posttraining meal should be consumed within an hour of the end of a workout. It should include .7 to .9 g of carbs per pound of bodyweight, with 50% of the carbs derived from easy-to-break-down high-glycemic sources: mashed potatoes, sports drinks, fat-free muffins and Cream of Wheat cereal are four cogent examples. A 200-pound bodybuilder should eat at least 140 g (.7 x 200). The exception to this caveat: Limit posttraining carb levels to .5 g per pound of bodyweight during a dieting-down phase.

Tip #7 – Mix Caffeine With Ephedra (Mahuang)

The dark side of increasing carb intake to build mass is the tendency to store additional bodyfat. The solution is to supplement with 100 milligrams (mg) of caffeine (an amount equivalent to a small cup of coffee) plus 111 mg of ephedra — generally marketed under the name mahuang — before three of your daily meals. If the label says “ephedrine,” be aware that 7 mg of ephedrine equals 111 mg of ephedra.

A caffeine/ephedra mix primes the body to increase thermic effect (calorie burning), and the time-release carb intake should help stimulate insulin sensitivity. This should mean staying leaner and reaping the mass-building benefits of an insulin spike that goes with chowing down on carbs. Remember, though, that thermogenics aren’t recommended for people under 18. And if you want to avoid ephedrine, see “Shredded to the Max” (November 2001 FLEX) for substitutes.

Tip #8 – Fructose Takes A Back Seat To Starch And Fiber

Fruit provides small amounts of vitamins and fiber and naturally occurring fructose (fruit sugar) helps to restore glycogen in the liver Bodybuilders should be more concerned with storing glycogen inside muscle, and that’s the primary role of staples such as potatoes, rice, pasta, yams, bread and high-fiber cereals. All in all, high-fiber complex carbs offer more benefits than fresh fruit to bodybuilders searching for lean body mass.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Weider Publications
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group

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The Two Hands Curl, by Doug Hepburn (1952)

Among the half-dozen of so exercises in which I have always been particularly interested, is the two hands curl. I have always maintained that there is a basic movement which can determine the strength of any given section of the physique. For instance, the deep knee bend or squat is a pretty accurate means of measuring the strength of the hips and thighs;

The dead lift with one or two hands determines the back strength; while the two hands slow curl gives you a good idea of the power of the arms in one of the two basic movements governed by them.

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It is true that I have used a wide variety of exercises in my various curling routines during the past few years, but these were merely for the purpose of change, to provide the necessary stimulation and keep my workouts from becoming monotonous, thereby halting progress. Personal experience has convinced me that to attain maximum power in the biceps of the arms, the two hands slow curl with barbell is the most effective and efficient exercise, not only from the amount of energy expended, but from the standpoint of time in which the maximum results can be obtained. All exercises apart from the actual lift are, as some people call them, “assistance movements,” and only the practice of the curl is important if you are going to break your records in it. If you want to improve the press, you press . . . the dead lift, then dead lift and the curl, then simply work hard, faithfully and with determination, using the two hands slow curl exclusively.

Outstanding ability and power in curling dumbbells, barbells and all kinds of awkward block weights has been the trademark of all the strong men of the past and present eras.

I am of course referring to those possessed not merely of “specialized” strength by virtue of certain favorable leverage of skeletal factors, but of an “all round basic Power.” The men who come most readily into my mind are these . . . John Davis . . . Arthur Saxon . . . Maurice Jones . . . Louis Cyr . . . Louis “Apollon” Uni . . Al Berger . . . You will notice, that it is if are fully acquainted with the power of these men, that not only did they possess extremely powerful arms, but they also had immensely strong backs and thighs, thus proving that the true foundations of strength lies in those regions.

Of them all, perhaps four stand out as the most powerful in the curl, in my opinion that is. I exclude Louis Cyr because I fell that romance has played a large part in certain of his feats and there is, so far as I can ascertain, no existing proof that some of his lifts were actually performed. John Davis, Al Berger, Maurice Jones and Herman Goerner are to me the greatest curlers we have seen. All these men have curled 200 pounds or over

with Herman Goerner heading the list with a two hands slow curl of 222 pounds. It is this record which I have personally worked to equal and then substantially surpass. I came close to doing so at the recent Mr. Eastern America show held by Joe Weider. I feel now that that if I had curled first, instead of having broken records in the deep knee bend, I would have made a 230 curl with little or no trouble. You see, I firmly believe that leg and back strength play just as important a part in the two hands slow curl, as power in the biceps. But I feel confident that if I continue to train along my present lines, utilizing the methods and theories I am submitting to you, I will be more than capable of exceeding Herman Goerner’s great record in the very near future.

At the very beginning of my weight training career, I had absolutely no idea that I was in possession of great power potentials, and I have often wondered how many men there might be, going around with greater potentials for strength than I have recently displayed. I used the regular bodybuilding movements in my training routines, the two hands curl included among them, and I had no thought of training for power, for maximum poundages or record breaking. I just wanted to build myself up, getting what strength I could from these regular movements. But suddenly I realized that I would never be noted for a beauty of physical development. I knew that I would be unable to obtain a proportionate physique such as physical excellence contestants possess, and I then determined that I would go all out for strength. It was at that moment that I formed my personal philosophy of exercise and power and I have kept to it since!

Just as with Goerner the Great, the curl has always been one of my favorite exercises, and as I found the realization growing stronger that I could never own a Mr. America physique, so I found too that I took more readily to a combination of sets, repetitions and poundages that produced strength rather than size, shape, definition and endurance. I was fully aware even then that strenuous efforts in concentrating on the development of maximum power would give me the most gratifying results and this, as I have since found, has proved to be true.

So I changed completely my former methods in which I was concerned only with bodybuilding qualities, to those that would give me the greatest strength in the minimum of time, while wasting as little energy in so doing. I adopted a high-weight low-repetition principle as contrasted to a medium-poundage high-repetition combination. This is, I feel, the first important rule in training for greater strength.

What I call the “Power Principle” is most effective in eliminating a buildup of fatigue products in the blood stream, through eliminating the factor of endurance movements that are part of most bodybuilding programs. Thus the would-be record holder, though he sacrifices some endurance, gains greater returns in strength. This principle, isolating the desired result – in this instance POWER – can be applied effectively to any other form of weight training activity. It is, in fact, used by the world’s champion John Davis. John uses a combination of heavy poundages with few repetitions, repeated for six to eight sets.

Most bodybuilders and weight trainers do not fully appreciate the fact that endurance and strength are two separate qualities, which simply cannot be FULLY obtained by using any one exercise in with one single system of sets and repetitions. It has been my personal experience in barbell training that an exercise, and sets and repetitions combination that effectively produces, say, endurance, does so only by sacrificing power. And the reverse is also true. If you train for power and desire to reap the greatest results, you can only do so by neglecting endurance.

In order to make this opinion a little clearer, I can do so by pointing out it is a popular misconception that to build great size is also to build great power. Most bodybuilding courses are laid out along these lines. They may give you a lot of size in a comparatively short period of time, but they fail to give you a corresponding degree of strength. Most bodybuilding authorities now recognize that great muscle size can be obtained by using high repetitions and sets in combination with a moderate poundage.

One gains both size and a certain amount of endurance but no appreciable degree of power, because the high-rep, moderate poundage principle simply cannot be applied to building power qualities. To gain great power one must constantly handle heavy poundage . . . poundages that are close to the limit of individual strength, repeated constantly with adequate rest periods in between. The normal bodybuilding program concentrates on saturating the muscle fibers with blood, thus maintaining a constant demand for greater size of volume in the individual muscle fibers in order to accommodate this repeated “pumping” up of the muscles.

Now, I have no quarrel with this training method. Nor do I seek to turn weight trainers away from it. If mere size is what you want, then the high repetitions and sets combined with a moderate poundage will give you size. On the other hand, Strength is obtained most effectively not through a bloating of the muscle tissue with seven, eight or nine sets of fifteen reps, but mainly through a strengthening of the ligaments and tendons as well as the fivers of the muscle, and this can be gained only with the use of a very heavy weight, LOW reps and the strictest style possible

Why the strictest style? Because there are rules to keep when you wish to break, and it is best that you get used to competition methods in your training. Then, when you are actually lifting to break a record, you lift tranquilly and at complete ease, knowing that it will be only be a poundage well above your limit that will gain you disqualification. With this strict style factor, I will deal more fully in the next chapter of this article.

So you see there are very definite reasons why the questions of repetitions, poundages and sets are so important to the man who is seeking power, or endurance or size. Summing up all the foregoing mass of words – one can say that to gain size, one should use high reps and moderate weight, while those who wish to build up strength, whether in the curl or any other movement, must keep strictly to a heavy poundage combined with low reps. Perhaps the greatest and most pleasing combination of both characteristics could be achieved by alternating these tow principles in one’s routine periodically, thus putting each one into effect for not less than the period of one month and not more than three months at the longest. This plan would have the profound effect of supplying the very necessary rest or change of routine, which is, in itself, essential to continued progress in both directions.

Now that I have explained my reasons for the use of the Power Principle in my training, I suggest you give it a try in your workout programme. It will not make any great alteration in your type of development or appearance. If you are inclined to muscular definement, it might possibly give you a little more muscularity, but nothing too noticeable. If you are, as I am, inclined to a smooth, fleshy type of musculature, you will remain the same outwardly, but the muscles will harden a great deal. In my next article, I’ll give you some training schedules together with some important tips that will help you bring your curl poundage up and aid you in maintaining correct posture, thus gaining greater success during actual curling attempts.