Non-Steroid -- Basic Training!

FORMER EDITOR MUSCLE & FITNESS
CURRENT EDITOR, PLANET MUSCLE

Several mornings these days, I should not even try to get out of bed. After 40 years of physical abuse, lately, I feel like Saddam Hussein looked coming our of his Tikrit rat hole.

My shoulders (both joints need to be completely replaced with metal) ache so bad, I can barely reach across to my left armpit with my right arm to put my deodorant on.

My low back is about as strong as a Snakes’ back, which is to say the Snake doesn’t have a back. Neither do I. I have so little core strength I can’t even roll around on one of those obnoxious round balls.

Why? Well I started heaving up York barbells at a very immature 11. No one knew that kids shouldn’t be lifting heavy weights over head back then. (I mean Oswald, the CIA and Oliver Stone had not even ambushed President Kennedy yet).
 All I knew is that I wanted to be strong and get big.

 My heroes were Norb Schemansky and Pat Casey. Norb was 40 and had split snatched 363-pounds, without steroids. The mighty Irishman, Pat

 Casey was approaching 600-pounds in the bench and he became the first to do it (when a bench was pure). Meanwhile, as a 99-pound Charles Atlas weakling in the 7th grade I lifted 115-pounds overhead. When I was a sophomore and woefully immature, at a weight of 130-pounds I could clean and press 205-pounds, higher than any of the high school senior football players.

 Starting my sophomore year, every Saturday, I would coerce my dad to drive me the 20-mile trip to the health food store to load up on all the

 Hoffman, Beverly and Superior MEM (meat/egg/milk), Schiff, and Beverly Argentina pampas liver that I could find. I even tried some Weider Wildcats. I kept harrumphing along.

I remember one shot put event as a Junior, I had a real bad day and could not even hit the first line (and it was only 40-feet). But by the end of my Senior year, my weight was up to 205 and I could standing press 255-pounds 2 reps. My bench press came along the same way, (265-pounds as a junior and 330-pounds as a senior) and at the same meet as a Senior - I put the shot 55 feet (and later reached 58 feet).

I went up 17 feet in one year. I had finally started to produce testosterone, but in the meantime I had already created damage in my joints. Heck, I did not even shave until I was 21. I remember in high school, the movie Don’t Make Waves came out, (starring Tony Curtis, Claudia Cardinale, and Sharon Tate -- the beauty that the Manson family murdered) but more to my interest musclemen Dave Draper, Reg Lewis, and Chet Yorton were in it. I saw that movie 6 times. I wanted to be able to carry a refrigerator just like Draper could. I even developed veins in my arms like the Blond Bomber, as Joe Weider aptly named him. Now all of this took place before I even knew what steroids were. (I started them some 10 years later.)

Now in those later years, I was training with Dr. Squat and The Kaz and a host of other muscle mass monsters such as Pittsburgh Steeler, Mike Webster, Olympic Star, Eric Heiden, and a very athletic girl name Corinna Inez Kneuer (later Cory Everson, my best lift I suppose).

We all did all right in the natural mass department. In fact, by the time I had reached the level of post doctorate in College, I had done very well.

I became a Big-10 strength coach in 1971-72 and stayed in that position until 1984. During that time I was ratcheting my back trying to follow the workouts of Jon Cole (905-pound squat, 580- pound bench press, 885-pound deadlift, 2370-pounds total), John Kuc (905-605-840-squat, BP, DL respectively, 2350-pounds total), and Don the Dinosaur Reinhoudt (950-600-870 and 2420-pound total)... all 300-pound guys with structurally thick waists, mine was not, although clearly my best of the deadly seven sins was gluttony, in trying.

I had milk-and-egged myself up in weight. But by then, I could barely even do a squat. So I stopped "lifting", trained more sensibly, and was able to diet down and soon win a Mr. USA. Cory was now married to me and we won 3 Mixed Pairs Titles, the Nationals, Americans and USA, (me grasping the superstar’s coattails), 1980-83.

Earlier, (1979) I also won the National weightlifting Collegiates with weights I can’t even roll across the floor now. In 1992, motivated by Dr. Scott Connelly and Met-Rx, I won the Masters Mr. America.

MY BELABORED POINT IS THIS!

I did come to know the world of Mass as good as the Pope. As of 1985, I had worked out with guys like Matt "Mendenmass" Mendenhall, Rich "The Dragonslayer" Gaspari, Lee Haney, Bertil eat-a-cow-aday Fox, Vic eat-a-grocery store-a-day Richards, and Hulk Hogan and Gary, eat- 80-eggs-a-day Strydom and CORY.

During my stint as Big 10 Strength Coach from 1972 to 1984, some 20,000 trainees passed within my auspices.

So... in this time, observing guys like the Kaz and Hatfield, I LEARNED what was the BEST muscle mass routine, which is to say, the routine that seemed to work WONDERS across a wide range of population bases.

In fact, I was able to develop some remarkable combinations of size and strength for everyone.

The best workouts for size -- for naturals, were really based around a 1 on/1 off, 1 on/2 off, 1 on/1 or 2 off training split.

All-American in the hammer and shot put 550-lbs. bench press for a double both with pauses at chest 510-lbs. bench-presses, for a set of five reps all with pauses 460-lbs. push press off the racks 340-lbs. snatch 424-lbs. clean and jerk 500-lbs. 11 reps in the deep, high bar squat... and further destroyed discs and shoulder joints (and no abs—half the reason why).

MY BEST MUSCLE SIZE WORKOUT!

This workout is for NATURAL lifters and bodybuilders where recovery is not enhanced by steroids.

DAY ONE: Monday Chest, shoulders & triceps A) Bench press: 1 x 20 reps warm up 1 x 12 reps warm up 1 x 6-8 reps warm up Work sets: 2 x 6 reps, 80% of maximum single 2 x 3 reps, 90% of maximum single Burn out set, 8-15 reps, heaviest weight possible B) Low incline dumbbell presses: 1 x 12-15 warm up 2 x 6-9 reps (fail within those rep guidelines) C) Seated very high incline dumbbell or seated presses: 3 x 6-10 reps (fail within those rep guidelines) D) Triceps pushdowns: 1 x 10 reps warm up 2-3 x 6-8 reps E) Lying triceps pullover/press with EZ-Bar: 1 x 10 reps warm up 2 x 8-12 reps F) Dips: 2 x maximum reps without weight G) Alternate dumbbell curls: 2-3 x 8-12 reps H) Crunches: 3-4 x 25-50 reps DAY TWO: Tuesday Rest DAY THREE: Wednesday Thighs, hamstrings, upper back A) Squats: 1 x 15 reps warm up 1 x 10 reps warm up 3 x 6-8 reps, 75-80% of maximum 1 x 10 15 reps with five half squats at the end of the set 1 x 15-25 reps with five half squats at the end of the set B) Leg Presses: 1 x 20 reps warm up 1 x 10 reps warm up 3-4 x 6-10 reps (increase weight for each set, to failure) C) Bent-over barbell or db rows: 1 x 12 reps warm up 3 x 6-10 reps D) Lat machine pulldowns to the front: 1 x 15 reps warm up 2 x 3 x 8-12 reps to failure

DAY 4/5: Thursday and Friday Rest DAY 6: Saturday Chest, shoulders, biceps, abs A) Flat bench dumbbell presses: 1 x 15 reps warm up 3-4 x 6-8 reps to failure 1 x 15 reps heavy pump set B) Front dumbbell raises: 1 x 15 reps warm-up 2-3 x 8-12 reps C) Shrugs: 1 x 20 reps warm up 3 x 8-15 reps (increase the weight for each set to failure) D) Straight bar curls: 1 x 20 reps warm up 1 x 10-14 reps to failure 3 x 8-12 reps to failure No direct triceps work on this day E) Hyperextensions: 2 sets maximum reps F) 2 x 50 crunches DAY 7: Sunday Ask the Lord for help from the insanity. Day 8 Monday: Rotation, thighs, hamstrings and low back A) Leg extensions pre-exhaust: 5 x 12-16 reps to failure and supersetted with Squats, also 5 x 8-12 reps to failure B) Leg curls pre-exhaust 3-5 x 10-15 and supersetted with either weighted hyperextensions, also 3-5 x 10-15 Or semi-flatback deadlifts, slight non lock outs. This can be 3-5 sets 8-12 reps. C). Seated Calf Raises: 3 x 10-15 reps with 10 additional partials each set DAY 9: Tuesday Chest, deltoids, triceps First workout body-parts repeated and keep on cycling through in this manner.

Eating-
Supplementing

The minimum is 3 solid meals/3 protein supplement meals. Over those years I have been fairly steadfast on what I think one should eat to get big. For example, I always disputed the out of context notion of the so-called "window of opportunity" as if somehow consuming proteins at times other than right after workouts meant the windows are closed.

As I have written elsewhere, a morsel of red steak caressing your palate post workout is hardly the same as ribosomal protein synthesis.

In order to build muscle get the protein so it is being absorbed OVER 24/7 hours/days. Science suggests metabolism works best if we graze and have multiple protein sources in our system every 2-3 hours.

Use a lot of protein like the best of those with good whey, casein and egg from Beverly Ultra Size and Muscle Provider, which I have personally endorsed right from the beginning. (They also make an extremely strong glutamine with BCAAs and creatine with select phosphates). One more thing read the rest of BodyMuscle Journal!

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