The information contained herein is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any specific illness or condition. Consult your physician before undergoing any eating and/or exercise program.
Q: I must say I enjoy reading what you write and find you somewhat an inspiration. I have wanted to be a police officer my entire life, but considering a juvenile criminal record (JUST expunged) I can't join the Marines as an MP. I can't join period either, because I got my GED and so I'm volunteering at the YMCA, and answering phones at the fire department until I start college for a degree in Education.
I do have one area of concern. I used to box. I'm 17, but started boxing when I was 16. I weighed 115 and was benching 180. Around New Year’s I cut myself on the wrist and severed several tendons, which put me to all running and biking for a good many months. Just this past month I've gotten back to work out, but I've found myself hesitating from the bench press due to a concern that it might affect my pushup reps. My goal I've set is 100 pushups by New Years, as well as squatting 200Lb. 20 times, running 5k, and 20+ chinups. It's not my desire to bulk up, just to be strong. I was wondering though if you could give me input on if weight training will affect my reps at all, I've heard a lot of controversy on this when I ask people in the gym but no one seems qualified to answer. I do a lot of reps on the butterfly and am working on getting higher reps on dips as well, but still don't want to get on the bench press.
I'm sorry if I typed too much for that simple question.
A: Not a problem. The question is: do you want to do the bench press? If you don’t care about bench press performance and only care about pushup performance, then don’t even bother with the bench press. Performing the bench press isn’t going to hurt your performance on pushups, as long as:
1. You keep doing pushups and do them often.
2. You don't overdo the volume on the bench press. In other words, don't do too many sets and reps on the bench press (or any other chest/triceps exercise, for that matter), because it will hamper your recovery between workouts.
What I suggest you do if you want to incorporate the bench press is to perform the bench press first in your chest workout. Focus on low reps, say 5 sets of 5 reps. Perform high rep pushups afterwards.
You may find your nervous system "wakes up" after a few heavy sets of bench pressing and that you'll perform more reps on the pushups. Just give yourself enough rest in between bench press sets and between the bench press and pushups. Go for 3 minutes or more.
Q: I understand you train police officers. Do you train them differently from your other clients?
A: If they're training to improve their physical performance at work, then yes, I do train cops differently. For example, I always stress to them the importance of the pull-up for our line of work. Other clients don't necessarily need to do pull-ups, but cops do. The pull-up really works and strengthens the back muscles, particularly the lats. When cops chase crooks down an alleyway and have to climb a fence, we essentially have to do a pull-up. When SWAT guys rappel down the side of a building, they need lat strength and the pull-up develops lat strength in spades.
The pull-up is also great for developing grip strength. After all, you have to hang on and pull your bodyweight. Grip strength is very important in law enforcement. When a cop handles a firearm, he needs a certain amount of both grip and lat strength. Grip strength also comes into play when an officer has to grapple with a suspect and subdue him.
Unfortunately, most police officers cannot do a pull-up. And of those that can do pull-ups, few can do a pull-up with all of their gear on. What's worse is that the way recruits are trained in most academies does not prepare them for the physical demands of the street. Frankly, I really despise the way police recruits are physically trained in academies. It's completely ass-backwards. Most academies have no weight rooms, let alone strength programs.
They make these young recruits run and run and run and do thousands of pushups. High rep pushups develop NO strength relevant to our line of work. None. And with regards to running: when you're out in the street and chase a suspect, you'll more than likely have to sprint. It's about speed. You ain't going to be running for miles. That's what the patrol car's for. That's why you have a radio to tell your backup, "He's coming your way!"
All that endurance training, with the running and calisthenics, really just takes away from an officer's strength, speed, and power. In the cop world, strength, speed, and power are what counts. That's how you end confrontations and chases quickly. "Speed kills" as the saying goes.
Now, to a certain extent you need endurance. But for cops, we're talking about strength endurance. We're talking about maintaining your strength for an extended period of time, such as wrestling with a suspect. But these "long" wrestling matches typically don't last more than a few minutes. If the bout did last longer, then I'd say the officer needs to brush up on his groundfighting.
If you want to develop strength endurance in a cop, then he needs to incorporate endurance training into his skills training. It has to be very specific to the job, though. For example, have a trainee run up a hill as fast as possible and then have him handcuff a pretend suspect waiting at the top of the hill. You'll find that a cop's fine motor skills deteriorate after a "balls to the walls" chase. But if you have a trainee regularly practice his skills training after an explosive bout of physical stress, i.e. sprinting up hill, then the trainee learns to work through fatigue.
That's a far better way of developing endurance specific to law enforcement. Not running for half a mile.
Q: What's your opinion of kettlebells? I hear a lot of law enforcement personnel train with kettlebells to improve their conditioning. I'd like to get a kettlebell, but it's kind of expensive for just one. And when you need to up the weight, you have to buy another size. I don't know. Is it worth it?
A: Being a cop, I can tell you that most law enforcement personnel have no idea what a kettlebell is. Some cops I know have never touched a barbell (and it shows), let alone a kettlebell.
First, for those readers that don't know what a kettlebell is, just think of a cannonball with a handle. Old-time strongmen (you know, the ones in the black and white photos with the handlebar mustaches) used them as part of their training. They've come back recently in popularity due to strength trainer, Pavel Tsatsouline.
Some of the alleged benefits to kettlebell training include:
· Greater explosive strength
· Greater strength endurance
· Fat loss
· Greater tendon and ligament strength
· Greater ability to absorb "ballistic shocks"
· Greater size and muscular development in the shoulders, trapezius, forearms and back
A lot of people who promote kettlebells say they're superior to dumbbells and barbells, and many of them train with kettlebells exclusively.
Now, kettlebells do kick ass. They are great conditioning tools, and will give you all of the above benefits. But it's only a tool. And a bodybuilder or a strength athlete needs many different tools to achieve his or her goals.
I understand your dilemna, because kettlebells really are cost-prohibitive. But there is a low-cost alternative called a "KettleStack."
What a KettleStack is a kettlebell handle, but without the cannonball. Instead, two prongs come out from the handle, through which you can attach standard plates and secure them with a couple of bolts. Not only does the KettleStack save you money on initial costs, you also save money in the long run, because you can add more weight, as you get stronger and more skilled.
I bought a KettleStack a month ago and have been very satisfied with the product. Once you've assembled it with the weight you want, it remains solid and sturdy. I've performed countless swings, snatches and clean and jerks with my KettleStack and never heard any clanging of plates. It's a well-crafted piece of equipment that I highly recommend.
Visit the website for more info: http://www.kettlestack.com.
Q: Is there a way to find out an ideal rep range for me to gain mass?
A: There is a formula which supposedly figures out what your fiber makeup is for a particular muscle group. I have some criticisms of this formula, but first, let me explain how it works: Let's say you want to figure out whether your chest is composed mostly of fast twitch muscle fibers (which would require you to train with heavy weights and low reps), slow twitch muscle fibers (which would require lighter weights and higher reps), or an approximately equal number of both (which is what the average person has).
First choose a basic compound movement for the chest, such as the bench press. After a brief warmup and 3 minute rest, determine your 1 rep max and perform it. Make sure you have a spotter with you. If you miscalculate your 1RM on the first set or two (or however many sets it takes), then make sure you rest 4-5 minutes between these sets.
Once you determine your 1RM, rest for 10 minutes. During those 10 minutes, calculate and remove 20% of your 1RM weight. When your 10 minutes are up, perform as many reps as you can in good form. Make sure you lower each rep under a 4 second count (how quickly you lift the weight doesn't matter). Again, make sure you have a spotter to assist at the end of the set.
Take note of the number of reps you've performed. If it's 7 reps, then you have an equal amount of fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers in the chest. If it's lower than 7, then you have a higher amount of fast twitch fibers. If it's higher than 7, then you have a higher amount of slow twitch fibers. The further away you are from 7, the higher the percentage of that particular type of muscle fiber.
Finally, multiply 15% to the number of reps you've performed. Subtract this amount from the number of reps you've performed. This is the lower end of your ideal rep range. Then add the 15% to the number of reps you've performed. This is the higher end of the ideal rep range for your chest.
So for example, if you performed 7 reps with 80%RM, then 6-8 reps would be the ideal rep range for the chest.
Now if you're trying to determine fiber makeup for other muscle groups, then choose the basic movements for those groups. For example: back (pullups), quads (squats), biceps (barbell curls), hamstrings (leg curls), etc. Also remember that for smaller muscle groups (i.e. arms, calves, delts) the rest period following your 1RM can be shortened to 5 minutes.
The problem that I have with this formula (and all other percentage-based formulas) is this: your 1RM can fluctuate. If your 1RM can fluctuate, then so can all of the percentages that are based on your 1RM, undermining the accuracy of the formula. Your strength can vary from day to day, even from hour to hour. For example, people tend to be stronger in the afternoon than in the morning. Even within the workout itself, the lifter's strength will fluctuate.
Fluctuations in strength occur, simply because an individual's physiological state fluctuates. Nutrition, the amount of sleep, ergogenics or other forms of supplementation, even the lifter's emotional state can influence his or her strength.
This is not to say that the above formula is useless. It can, quite frankly, be a valuable tool in determining the ideal training methodology for each of your bodyparts. Just keep these things in mind when you use this formula:
1) While it's important to determine the ideal rep range for a particular bodypart, you shouldn't train exclusively in that rep bracket. Training exclusively in the 8-10 range for the biceps is analogous to mowing a third of your lawn and thinking it's done. Instead, you should venture out of your target rep range once in a while and exercise other fiber types in that muscle. So instead of always performing 8-10 reps for your biceps every workout, you should cycle the reps in your workouts: 10-12 reps for one day, 8-10 for the next, and 6-8 reps for the end of the cycle. This will prevent you from overtraining and tearing up a third of your "lawn."
2) Each muscle group will have a rep continuum, but how broad that rep continuum is will depend on the muscle. Muscles that are primarily fast twitch (such as the hamstrings and the long head of the triceps) tend to have very narrow rep continuums. Slow twitch muscles (such as the soleus muscle of the calf) and muscles with substantial amounts of both fast and slow (such as the chest, biceps, delts, quads, and back) will have enormous rep continuums. For example, while your hamstrings have a narrow rep continuum (6-8, 4-6, 3-5 reps), your quadriceps have a broad one (15-20, 10-12, 6-8 reps).
In future articles, I'll tell you what rep ranges are appropiate for which muscle groups. Until then, use the formula and explore the upper and lower limits of your repetitions.
Q: What's your opinion on this ketogenic diet that I keep reading about at the Mesomorphosis website? Is it really anti-catabolic? Does it get the fat off?
A: I've experimented with all of kinds of diets. In fact, I had experimented with one version of the ketogenic diet for about half a year.
What is a ketogenic diet? A ketogenic diet is a high fat, moderate protein, no carb diet. The idea is that if you restrict the amount of carbs you ingest (no more than 30-50g), then your body will fracture fats into ketones and use it as a source of fuel.
There are many variations of the ketogenic diet. The ones that bodybuilders should be concerned with are the "cyclical ketogenic diets" (CKD). With these diets, you follow a high fat, moderate protein, no carb diet for 5 days; then follow a high carb, moderate protein, low fat diet for a day and a half. Dan Duchaine's "Bodyopus" diet and Dr. Mauro DiPasquale's "Metabolic Diet" are both CKD's. Both are based on the original CKD, Mike Zumpano's "Rebound Diet."
Promoters of CKD's claim that their diets will get you ripped to the bone. They also claim that it's anti-catabolic, slowing muscle breakdown to the point where you actually increase lean muscle mass.
After 6 months on the Metabolic Diet, here's what I think of CKD's:
CKD's are, by far, the best diets for losing bodyfat. I was extremely ripped while on this diet. Even though I was lean before starting the diet, the CKD made me even leaner. My definition and vascularity had increased so much that I would receive stares and comments inside and outside the gym. As long as you follow the diet correctly, you will be contest ready for as long as you're on the diet.
CKD's are a bitch to follow. If you can't even follow a conventional, low calorie diet, then don't even think about trying a CKD. During the 5-day no-carb phase, you will go nuts. In fact, if you have a history of mental illness, then you shouldn't follow this diet. Seriously. My cravings for carbs made me extremely irritable. I started craving for carbs that I didn't even care for before the diet.
The other difficulty of this diet is that your menu will be very limited. Mostly meats, poultry, fish, eggs, and pure protein drinks. Sounds reasonable at first, until you find out that you can't have too much seasoning or sauces because of their carb content. A max of thirty grams of carbs per day might seem reasonable, but I found out that carbs are everywhere. A few grams here and there throughout the day can add up quickly. Two slices of toast, and you've already expended your 30g daily allowance. Even eggs have a gram or two of carbs. So if you eat out all the time, forget about CKD's. You won't be able to order anything on the menu.
CKD's are not very anabolic. Despite it's initial name, the Metabolic Diet (which was formerly known as the Anabolic Diet) didn't increase my lean body mass by very much. I experimented with the diet in order to gain muscle mass, not so much to lose fat. The diet did seem to preserve my muscle mass, but anti-catabolism and anabolism are 2 different processes. Besides, much of the size increase that I experienced while on the diet was mostly due to the carbo loading. If you're looking to get big off of CKD's, then you won't be big all the time. Carbs constitute a significant amount of a muscle's size, and without them (i.e. 5-day ketogenic phase), you won't look as big or as muscular as you'd want to be all the time.
There are other problems, too. For one thing, you can't use a lot of supplements during this diet. Creatine, for example. If you use creatine during the 5-day no-carb phase, then you will get a bad case of the shits. You have to ingest mega amounts of creatine only during the carbo loading phase. Your body, however, will be saturated with creatine for only a few days before they start to deflate again.
Another problem revolves around training. Because of the absence of carbs and the fluids normally retained by these carbs, you won't be able to train intensely for most of the week. Most your training during the week will involve high rep, high volume, low rest, quick tempo training to help flush out the carbs and keep you in ketosis. Only during the carbo phase can you train like a regular bodybuilder. Thus, you'll miss out on the various anabolic training methods. And if you're an athlete, then you wouldn't use a CKD, since carbs are crucial for peak performance and for peak recovery.
So to sum up, cyclical ketogenic diets are best for people who want to lose fat and who have an iron will when dieting. I don't recommend it for people looking to gain muscle mass or for athletes concerned with performance. A CKD is an excellent pre-contest diet; just be sure to start the diet way beforehand to get it right (3 months).
Q: I am a natural bodybuilder in England and am hoping to compete for the first time in September. Could you please help me with a diet plan? Is it just a case of increasing the cardio and decreasing the calories and eating clean, or are there some good tried and tested diets that will work for me. I have a degree in sports science so don't hold back- I know about the specifics of healthy eating etc but have no idea what works in the real world to reduce bodyfat to such a large extent- I am currently at 192lbs at 13%. Cheers!
A: Personally, I found the Metabolic Diet to be the best fat loss diet around. It's an excellent pre-contest diet. It is risky, however, to experiment with the diet when you have very little time to do so. In fact, I would say any pre-contest dieting is risky when you're doing it for the first time. Everybody has a different metabolism. I find that I can lose fat very easily, and very quickly. Most people, however, have a difficult time losing fat, and thus require longer periods of dieting.
To complicate matters further, not everyone responds to pre-contest carbo loading. The late Don Ross stated that it only works for 1 out of 4 people (usually the ectomorph responds well to carbo loading). Other people, believe it or not, get fuller muscles from eating fat as opposed to carbs.
Here are 2 options that I'll suggest:
1) If you're willing to experiment and take a chance, then try the Metabolic Diet. Just make sure you carbo load for the contest.
2) If not, then I suggest you take the ZigZag approach to dieting. In other words, you diet for 5 days out of the week, eating normally (don't gorge yourself!) for 2. When you hit the last 3 weeks before the contest, just keep on dieting (1600-2000 calories/day) without the 2 day breaks. One to three days before the contest, however, you should increase the calories and carbo load. Note that I said 1-3 days instead of giving you a definitive number. Like I said before, everybody's metabolism's different. You'll just have to do a little experimentation to find out when you peak.
For the ZigZag diet, keep your carbohydrate intake low and eat 6 small meals instead of 3 large meals. As far as other tips that I can give you:
- Start tanning at least a month before the contest.
- Don't train your legs (whether through weight training or aerobics) during the week before the contest. Don't train your upper body for at least 3 days before the contest.
- Practice, practice, practice your poses! Your body needs to be able to hold a pose for several seconds.
- Take out all sodium from your diet, and up your potassium (4000mg/day) a day or two before the contest.
- When you oil up for the contest, don't oil your face!
- When you pump up backstage, just pump up your upper body. If you pump up your legs, they'll swell up with blood and you'll lose all your cuts.
Got a question on strength training or bodybuilding? Email me at
jchan@strengthandphysique.com.
For further insights into strength training and bodybuilding, check out my blog at http://www.strengthandphysique.blogspot.com/
