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Questions and Answers |
IntroductionI get a tremendous amount of emails everyday. I try and answer each one because I appreciate the time it takes someone to write me a letter. It's a great high for me to talk to someone about their progress, and it gives me a lot of insight into what works and what doesn't. So I've decided to feature a few of the questions that I get each month in the current issue of Beyond Failure Magazine. So without further ado: 12 Weeks to burning Fat QuestionQuestion:
Your 12 week fat burning program is fantastic and I am already seeing a lot more
definition in my
abs! Would it be Ok if I only
rested one day instead of two on your program? Where's the Trench???Question: Yeah it's an abs question Again!! What are the best exercises to get that groove down the middle of your abs? Is it lots of twisty twisting movements? As my 6 pack is looking more like an abnormally wide 3 pack, unless the light is shining in the right direction!!! Answer: While coming up in bodybuilding I was always trying to figure out how I could etch cuts into certain body parts. For instance how can I separate all four heads of my quadriceps. After years of training you wan to know what my answer was? The answer to separation and cuts are to develop a muscle from every angle possible. So obviously by just doing squats and dead lifts I wasn't going to get separation in my quads. I had to add abductor machines, leg extensions, sissy squats and lunges. Now, when my body fat percentage is low I can see each head of the quadriceps on their own and extremely distinguished and sculptured. The same principle applies to your abs. You need to work them as many ways as possible. But to sum things up here are the ingredients to great abs: Always include a twisting movement such as twisting crunches. Always include a straight foreword movement like decline sit-ups or machine crunches. Always include a lower ab exercise like leg raises and hanging leg raises. For an extra burn add in scissors. Now whenever I am interested in serious separation
I will always concentrate on extended peak contraction. If you want to bring a
muscle up, peak the heck out of it. So when you do twisting crunches and reach
the top of the movement hold this point and squeeze the muscles hard for about 2
to 5 seconds, then slowly lower yourself again. If you work on peaking a muscle
really hard at the top of each movement then I guarantee you will see new separation,
serious separation. But you are right, twisting crunches do help develop the
channel in the middle of the abs. I need to increase my bench pressQuestion: I can bench press around 340 touch and go, but for competition, I have to do a pause press, and I need to increase my pause press by 25 pounds in a month and a half if I can. I can pause press 320 right now, and I need 340-345 by April 20 what should I do ??? It is a workout that my coach gives me usually sets of 5 or 4 around 80 to 65 percent of my max Answer: The Routine I am going to give you is not a bodybuilding routine. It is meant to increase your one rep max. So this is a power lifting routine. Right now your goal is a bigger bench therefore everything you do must go toward this goal. Also this same routine can be applied to your squat. 1) Cut chest training back to 1 every 6-7 days. 2) Train bench press first in your session. with
a layout similar to this. *Attempt to increase your starting point by 2.5% to the nearest 5lbs rounded up or down accordingly. Do military Presses 3 sets for 8 reps Your done... go home and eat! 3) Keep training sessions intense but short. Give your self 2.5 minutes rest between light sets and up to but no more than 5 mins rest on heavy sets. 4) Stop all the training you read about in BFS and other publications towel benches, incline benches, chains on the bar, and etc. This is off season training your "pre-contest". 5)Make sure that you are fully recouped between workouts! Listen, your full concentration has to be on increasing your bench, I cannot stress this enough! You need to eat eat eat ! Or this will not work. Read my article titled "So you want to be huge " Then follow my get big diet" This workout just plain works for increasing the one rep max and It was taught to me by a man who broke basically all of the power lifting records in Minnesota. This will get you to your goal easy! Resting TimeQuestion: Does it really matter how much rest u have between sets? Answer: Variation The whole key is variation. You have to keep your body guessing. Here is what I will normally do: 3 weeks on my bench press I will rest 3:00 minutes in between sets, however after three weeks my body will get used to this pattern so I will cut down my rest time and only rest a minute. I never only rest 20 seconds unless I am using the rest pause method of training. So I will vary my rest periods between 1 and 3 minutes. What are the advantages and disadvantages you ask? Well with more rest you will get higher strength gains. This is because you will be able to rack out more repetitions. With less rest your muscles will become more conditioned. They will have to get better at clearing the blood and lactic acid out, this is a good way to bring out your vascularity. The best way to accomplish this is as you said mix it up. For 2 weeks rest 3 minutes and for two weeks rest one minute. Every once in a while too burn out try a strip set. This is where you do not rest at all. you might do Bench Presses with the heaviest weight on the bar you can handle for 6 reps. Say that weight is 245 pounds. After you have failed, your partner would quickly strip off weight so that you could do more reps with 200 pounds and then one more time for 180. A variation of this method is called “Running the Rack”, in which you do your set with one weight, go to failure, put the weight down and go to the next lightest in line, go to failure, and continue this process to exhaustion. SO you can run the rack if you don’t have a training partner. Changing rest time up is one of the best ways to shock the body into new growth! How do I get Rid of Stretch Marks!Question: Well I know lots of bodybuilders get stretch marks and so forth, and i am starting to get them on my arms like on my inner biceps. like I heard you cant get rid of them unless they fade and they wont go away if you keep lifting? so someone please give me some suggestions? because i am definitely not going to stop pumping iron. Answer: Ah stretch marks, they are the bodybuilders battle wounds. Firstly stretch marks are a sign of growth, you won't get them unless your muscles are getting bigger! This obviously means that your muscles are getting bigger right, so this is a good thing. The best thing to do is to get some Vitamin E and rub it on the stretch marks, this will really help a lot. I usually take a hot shower and then rub the vitamin E on the stretch marks then because your skin is more receptive to the vitamin E. This stuff works miracles, trust me. But my advice to you is to rub vitamin E on them, this has worked for me and thousands of other bodybuilders. As I said before they are just part of the iron game!
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