Memoirs of a reluctant Bulker

Twenty something years ago at a weight of roughly 150 pounds, I watched "Pumping Iron" the movie, purchased a cement-based set of weights, bought some powdered milk, started doing curls and overhead presses in my room and never looked back. I can still remember standing in my little teenager room with a dresser, bed, chest of drawers, little black and white television that I was so proud of, and observing myself doing standing cement barbell curls in a four foot by two foot wall mirror. I also remember watching with amazement at how fast my little noodle arms began to expand seemingly exponentially over the first few months. As a living testament to the tenet that a body responds readily to weight training before hitting a plateau, I quickly piled on ten pounds and subsequently began wearing (with pride) tank tops! Ya know, because I was all buff and stuff all of a sudden….yeah, all 160 pounds of me!

Over the next twenty years, I have tried a myriad of gimmick products (like the abdominator, remember that one), diets, workout routines, snake-oils, late-night rituals, hypnotism techniques: Anything, outside of growth enducing drugs, that I felt would make me grow to brobdingnagean proportions. My goal back then was to be the biggest fella in any room, building, office, team, city, state, country, or world for that matter. Yes, I once dreamed of competing in the Mr. O someday..Don’t laugh….I see you!..I truly thought I would get there, thank you very much. I idolized the golden-age-guys the most, like Arnold (of course), Franco, Louie, Frank Z. Sergio Oliva, and Dave "The Blonde Bomber" Draper. I also followed the careers very closely of the current super stars of the time like, Lee Haney, Dorian (No last name necessary), Kevin Levrone, Flex Wheeler,  and Lee Labrada.

Interestingly enough, somewhere along the way, I got side-tracked by reality. Needed to get a job, support a family, pay bills and learn how to operate a household. Don’t get me wrong, these were all fantastic things and I would never change any bit of what has happened in my life. Unless the allowable change might include winning the Powerball about fifteen years ago, then I’d be all about change. At any rate, I digress, back to the story.

Having given a bit-o-my background I feel it my duty to address a few things that I have experienced over my progressional period from Mr. Olympia hopeful (you’re laughing again), to: "Mr. got a family, job, lot of responsiblities, other interests, average, ordinary, CommonOlympia (my word by the way)!!"

So here goes. Remember, the secret theme password’s are (LIMITED and COMMON) SShhh…..

In remaining COMMON, my main requirement is: IT MUST BE LIMITED AND EASY! HA, told you!

Alright, what the heck does that mean? Shouldn’t this bodybuilding / fitness thing be complicated, requiring all kinds of measurements, tracking devices, and a degree in micro biology?

SIDENOTE BREAK for entertainment only! If you are only interested in the boring facts, please feel free to skip this paragraph and resume reading at the next paragraph. I read an article in a BBing magazine the addressed to a young fella who had asked a question regarding steroids that went something like this, "After taking said Testosterone Booster (TB), you must inject so and so milligrams of an Estrogene Minimizer (EM), followed by this Plant Extract (PE) along with so and so milligrams of Insulin, and then after following this regimen for exactly two weeks, you must decrease the TB dosage based on the amount of Insulin you were administering on the days you were intaking the PE and EM. Now by having blood work done you will better your chances of knowing how much TB you should take for the first six weeks depending on what your levels of Cholesterol are and by multiplying your TB dosage with those results and an eponent variable you will know how long your cylcle should be, not considering of course if you have been drinking orange juice on Wednesdays, as this may skew the data received during said blood tests……………..HUH? Excuse me? Does this sound like bodybuilding / fitness to anyone else? Why is this even considered healthy?????

Alright, back to reality. I included the preceding scenario to exemplify how goofed up things are currently for some people who are trying to make progress in this whole crazy fitness thing. Look, back to my original requirement: EASY AND LIMITED. If I can’t obtain and maintain my level of fitness using only natural products and completing workouts that conform to my already busy lifestyle(IE, whole foods, protein supplements) I don’t want it!! Don’t try to sell me stimulants, testosterone boosters, Oxidizers, Whoodiewhoopies, Frumptarts, pink pills, red goo, Super day long workout regimines or anything else that isn’t EASY AND LIMITED.

WHY? What’s the big deal you ask? Glad you asked my incredibly inquisitive friend…allow me to expound. Because I’ve burnt alot of money in the past on the fly-by-night products / routines and in the end, guess what? I can achieve some pretty darn good results without them. Now am I saying that I would not benefit from some of todays extensively engineered supplements? No, I am not saying that at all, and as a matter of fact, if supplements were free, I would most likely be trying all and ultimately using the ones that made a difference. I am saying however, that in my current state of being, (no free money for supps) I know that I must obtain and maintain my gains without expensive supplements and / or guru’s fly-by night workout gizmo’s. With that, I finally (and thank God right?) offer in list fashion my very LIMITED AND EASY workout and nutrition thoughts.

Working out: Work each muscle group (Chest, Back, Shoulders, Arms, Legs) once a week and fully exhaust the targeted muscle during each working set.

Things to consider:

First - Ensure you are working the targeted muscle: Be attentive to lactic acid build-up. If you are doing squats and your thighs begin to burn….GOOD JOB, you’re stimulating growth! If you are performing standing curls and your shoulders and triceps are burning…..take a step back, analyze your form and the amount of weight you are using: Chances are no muscle break down is taking place.

Second - Ensure that you have left everything in the gym. If you’ve just worked Shoulders and your arms do not feel like they weigh four-hundred pounds when you waive good-bye to the Hot girl working behind the counter, you have some fuel left in you…Go back and burn it!

Third - Don’t be whimp….Move that weight like you mean it. Don’t just go through the motions: feel the muscle working and embrace the burn. Say things like, "Oh baby-burning, I love you burning muscle of fire..I embrace your scorching properties and secretly I want to marry you….Okay, maybe you shouldn’t say that last part. If you find yourself wanting to marry the burn, you probably have deeper issues that bodybuilding cannot help.

Now on to Nutrition…and yep this is even more simple:

Cut out Carbs and replace with healthy fats: Increase your protein and remove most if not all processed foods from your diet.

Things to consider:

First - The body runs more efficiently and proficiently when it is burning healthy fats for fuel than carbs. Plain and simple! Being a carb lover, this is a tough one to stomach, but I’m telling you, it’s the truth. Remember, Poly’s and mono’s are the fats you’re looking for….try to limit but not cut out totatlly the saturates. Never take in trans….they are just evil at the end-o-the day, period.

Two - When I say "processed," I mean foods that are prepackaged and contain a very unhealthy dose of sodium. Canned meats, bagged and pre-spiced meats are big culprits (Remember that 1 milligram of sodium holds subcutaneoulsy, 10 milligrams of water). I used to think that cooking fresh would be an extreme pain and an extreme draw on my already limited time. But the fact is, it’s not at all. I take a couple of hours on the weekend to cook and prepare all of my meats for the coming week. That’s it. I’m telling you: Once you feel the difference it makes by eating clean, you’ll understand that those two hours are easily worth it.

Three - A big mistake people make is that they do not include enough protein in the diet to support muscle maintenance and subsequently they begin to shrink the one thing they’ve worked so hard for…MUSCLE. Make sure you are taking in at least one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. Seems like a lot, but in the end, it really isn’t.

 Well, that’s a very winded overview of my basic guide to survival in this muscle quest thing I’ve had going on for over twenty years. If for some strange, twisted and unspeakable reason you are still reading after that overly-abundant and girth-laden word-boggle, I look forward to any feedback you might have with my LIMITED AND EASY way of fitness-thinking.

 Good Thursday all, and may the spirits of past CommonOlympians guide your muscle-quest tonight!

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 23rd, 2007 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.