bodybuilding
Bodybuilding Book Progress Update
I am making some major changes to the structure of the book, which means it will take somewhat longer to complete, but I believe it will flow better and makes more organizational sense.
A lot of people have been e-mailing asking about it, and I greatly appreciate the interest in the book, but I would rather wait until I am happy with it than rush out something I will regret later. I believe the changes will be worth the wait.
I am trying to edit it to maximize the “signal to noise” ratio, with efficiency and readability and ease of use the top priorities. Unless an anecdote or detailed scientific explanation significantly contributes to understanding of a concept, it’s being cut or moved to a sidebar or the appendix. By moving some of these to sidebars or the appendix the flow will be improved while somewhat off-topic or more technical information will be retained for those interested.
I hope to finish it soon, but it is more important to me to do it right than to do it right now.
Ripped Abs
Contrary to the idiotic recommendations of most current ab training books, courses and group class instructors, it is neither necessary nor beneficial to perform dozens of high rep sets of a wide variety of abdominal exercises. You also don’t need different exercises for your lower and upper abs, and you don’t need stability balls, special slings, benches, or any other gimmicky crap. In fact, you don’t need any direct abdominal exercise at all to get ripped abs. All that is necessary is to reduce body fat to very low levels, and that has far more to do with diet than exercise.
Drew Baye
Regardless of the strength or development of your superficial abdominal muscles, if your body fat level is low enough they will show good separation due to the muscle being divided into distinct “blocks” by lines of connective tissue. I performed no direct abdominal exercise for over half a year prior to the photo to the left being taken, yet had extremely good abdominal definition simply due to having reduced my body fat to the low single digits. My routine during that time was very basic, especially compared to the kind of unnecessarily complex routines being promoted by the internet ripped abs “experts”. It consisted of of only one set each of stiff-legged deadlifts, leg presses, pulldowns, chest presses, rows, and calf raises, along with occasional barbell curls and cable tricep press-downs. No crunches, sit ups, leg raises, knee raises, planks, twists or bends of any kind.
Indirect Effect
If you regularly perform chin-ups, pull-ups (especially with additional weight), heavy pull-downs, pullovers, standing presses or even just very heavy cable tricep press-downs, your abdominal muscles receive quite a bit of indirect work stabilizing the body during those exercises. Little additional abdominal work is necessary, and the primary benefit of any additional direct abdominal work is improved trunk strength for being able to better handle weight in those other movements and for protecting the back, not the appearance of your abs. Abdominal muscle development makes absolutely no difference at all if body fat levels are not low enough. Your primary purpose for training abs should be performance and spine health, and not appearance. › Continue reading
Effect of Hand and Shoulder Position On Elbow Flexor Involvement During Curling and Pulling Exercises
This morning during a phone conversation with Greg Anderson the subject of the previous post on the effect of hand position on triceps involvement came up.. Greg mentioned, and I agree, hand position makes little difference to arm flexor involvement during curling and pulling movements as well.
Articles on arm training in bodybuilding magazines and web sites often make claims of different hand or shoulder positions or grip width having the effect of isolating or emphasizing one head of the biceps or a particular arm flexor (i.e. incline curls to target the long head of the biceps, hammer curls to target the brachioradialus, reverse grip curls to target the brachialis, etc.). While there is some truth to this - changes in hand or shoulder position affect the relative length and thus the ability of some of the elbow flexors to produce force - the effect on muscular development is greatly exaggerated. › Continue reading
Physique Versus Function - A False Dichotomy
Bodybuilding and training for performance need not be mutually exclusive. In fact, a training program and diet geared towards performance - specifically building as much strength as possible throughout the entire body while maintaining a low body fat percentage - will result in a physique that is both highly capable and impressive.
A major reason for belief in the physique versus function dichotomy is probably the greater use of isolation exercises in bodybuilding, which are often erroneously considered “non-functional” by many in the functional training crowd. They believe that an exercise must be performed in a manner that mimics how the body moves during activities of daily living, work, or sport for the strength or other aspects of fitness gained in that movement to effectively transfer to those activities. However, it is not necessary to work the muscles involved in a particular movement using a similar movement for the strength gained to transfer. Regardless of how a muscle becomes stronger, the greater strength can be applied to any movement involving those muscles, and any program that effectively addresses all of the major muscle groups will improve function, even if it includes isolation exercises. › Continue reading
Fat Loss Myths Part 2: Cardio Is Necessary For Fat Loss
Myth: It is necessary to perform cardio on a regular basis to lose fat.
Truth: Cardio is not necessary for fat loss, and contributes relatively little to a fat loss program compared to high intensity strength training.
To lose fat it is necessary to create a calorie deficit - you must consume fewer calories than you expend so the body obtains the difference from your fat stores. While overall activity level has an effect on daily calorie expenditure, additional “cardio” (steady state or interval training) burns relatively few calories even if performed for an hour or more at moderate intensity daily. A greater calorie deficit can be achieved by simply restricting calorie intake, with little time investment other than the few minutes required for planning and recording meals.
The most important benefit of exercise to a fat loss program is not the calories expended during workouts, but the maintenance of muscle tissue while fat is lost. This requires strength training. There is a direct relationship between lean body mass, particularly muscle mass, and metabolic rate - more muscle equals a higher metabolic rate. If calorie intake is reduced significantly without regular, consistent strength training, muscle tends to be lost along with fat resulting in a reduced metabolic rate. Cardio does nothing to prevent muscle loss and may even accelerate it. › Continue reading
Interview with Josh Trentine, NGA and IDFA Natural Pro Bodybuilder
The following interview was originally posted on baye.com in late 2006.
Josh Trentine is the CEO of Overload Personal Training and a natural bodybuilding competitor. He has been competing successfully for years using high intensity training, and turned pro this year in both the NGA and IDFA after taking 1st places in both the 2006 Natural USA and 2006 Canadian Classic.
Drew Baye: How did you get involved in bodybuilding?
Josh Trentine: I watched my first contest, when I was 20 years old. The next year, I found out there would be a natural Mr. Ohio, and I entered (21 years old). At the time, I was using the typical high volume approach that the muscle mags promote. I was training at least 2 hours a day six to seven days per week, many times two sessions per day, not including a bunch of cardio. I hit the stage that year at a whopping 159 lbs.
Drew Baye: So when did you make the switch to H.I.T. training and what prompted you to do so?
Josh Trentine: I continued to compete for the next 2 years, until I was 23. During this time, through the process of trial and error, I gradually reduced my volume, and got better, and better results. › Continue reading
Drew Baye Interview on SuperSlow in Muscular Development Magazine, May 2001
In May of 2001, Muscular Development magazine ran a feature on SuperSlow® training , in which contributing editor Bob Lefavi, PhD. interviewed Dr. Wayne Westcott, Dr. William Kraemer, Dr. Robert Newton, and myself. The following is the portion of the article with my interview, followed by my current thoughts on the subject.
Drew Baye
May 2001
I still think the TUL’s [time under load; beginning to end] that people use with SuperSlow® are too high. But, it’s not so much a problem with SuperSlow as it is with the way it’s being applied. My personal experience has shown that the six to eight rep range, while producing significant improvements in other trainable areas of fitness, is less than ideal for someone trying to gain muscle mass, for a few reasons. › Continue reading
Calculating the Daily Calorie Deficit For Maximum Fat Loss
In books and articles on fat loss it is common to see arbitrary recommendations for daily calorie intake or deficit, such as 1,200 calories per day for women and 1,500 calories per day for men, or a deficit of 500 to 1000 calories per day to lose 1 to 2 pounds of fat per week. The problem with arbitrary calorie intakes is obvious - not everybody has the same daily calorie expenditure so the resulting deficit will vary significantly between people. Apparently the problem with arbitrary deficits is not so obvious - many personal trainers and health professionals routinely recommend a daily calorie deficit of 500 to 1000 calories for everybody - a range that is too low for some and too high for others. › Continue reading
Basic Guidelines for Fat Loss
This is meant as a set of basic guidelines for fat loss, and is nowhere near a complete discussion of the topic. More advanced, detailed guidelines will be posted in future articles as well as an upcoming book.
While numerous factors affect fat gain and loss, by far the most important is energy balance - calorie intake versus calorie expenditure. If you consume more calories than your body burns over a period of time, you will gain fat. If you want to lose fat, you must consume fewer calories than your body burns. There are three basic ways to accomplish this: › Continue reading
Experiments With Rest-Pause Training
Background
For those unfamiliar with the term, rest-pause is a method of resistance training where a brief pause is taken between repetitions. Some variations involve a pause between every repetition of a set, some involve pausing between reps or groups of reps to enable the performance of additional repetitions after muscular failure has been reached. The rest-pause between reps is typically between 5 and 15 seconds, and some variations start lower and increase as the set becomes progressively harder.
Rest pause is not a new method of training, or even a relatively recent development. Peary Rader wrote about rest pause training in 1946 in one of his Iron Man training courses, The Rader Master Bodybuilding and Weight Gaining System, and Bob Hoffman wrote about a method of rest pause he called Muscle Contraction with Measured Movement in 1962 in his Functional Isometric Contraction - Advanced Course. There have been numerous variations since then, some of the most popular being the 20 rep breathing squats popularized by Randall Strossen in his book Super Squats, Mike Mentzer’s version from High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way, and Dante Trudell’s “Dogg Crapp” training method. › Continue reading